Seventeen creative projects from across Scotland have been awarded £265,000 in immersive technology funding in the second round of the Immersive Arts grant programme, aiming to break the barriers for artists of all backgrounds to utilise immersive tools.

With three distinct grant amounts available,  £5,000, £20,000 and £50,000, the funding is designed to support artists at different stages of their creative development, allowing them to explore, experiment or expand how they make work that uses technology to actively involve an audience.

Award winners from this round include The Game by Biome Collective, which received a £50,000 Expand grant to create an immersive sound-walk artwork through Dundee. Using a mobile app and headphones, audiences walk through the city to explore football as a lived culture, with their route, pace and pauses triggering different audio elements and composition.

The project aims to preserve everyday journeys as a public artwork, and the current prototype will be expanded through co-design with Alzheimer Scotland and local partners, including Dundee United Community Trust, UNESCO City of Design Dundee and V&A Dundee.

“Being a part of the Immersive Arts programme is a huge step forward for our project. By weaving together personal memories of Dundee’s football culture with the physical act of walking through the city, we’re creating a living archive,” said Andy Truscott, co-leader of the Biome Collective.

Also winning the top prize is Charged Encounter, an XR experience and immersive theatre show where audiences are invited to navigate through both real and fantastical scenes, designed to highlight the difficulties of living in the UK as a marginalised person.  

Meanwhile, Strandfall in Edinburgh will benefit from a £20,000 Experiment grant for an outdoor mixed-reality experience, where players are survivors of a global environmental disaster who must negotiate the future of their community in a storm-ravaged park, equipped with custom spatial computers and long-range, low-power radios.

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Among those winning a £5,000 Explore grant are Lana Enix in Greenock, a project developing responsive environments using large-scale projections of 3D simulations that shift in real-time in response to audience behaviour, and Glasgow-based artist Stuart Brown, who is exploring the use of drums and percussion as a live, interactive audiovisual performance tool.

“The power of Immersive Art’s focus on technical and artistic innovation, balanced by a deep commitment to inclusion at all stages, means that we are developing a strong grassroots network of tomorrow’s global leaders in the emerging fields of creative technology,” said Morgan Petrie, creative industries manager at Creative Scotland.

“The new ideas and approaches supported through these awards will open up fresh ways for audiences to connect with culture, helping to shape how the arts continue to enrich people’s lives throughout the 21st century.”

A full list of winners over this funding round can be found here.