Dr Joanna Bucknall of the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts has secured a grant of £60,399 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a project called ‘Corpus Quod’. It will develop augmented reality and immersive strategies that will enable audiences to experience what it is like to be an asylum seeker in the UK based upon ‘real world’ case studies.
This ‘Practise as Research’ project will bring together researchers in sociology (Charles Leddy-Owen from the University of Portsmouth), digital technologies (Fred Charles from the University of Bournemouth), creative economy partners (Bristol-based Stand+Stare, the DifferencEngine and The Lab Collective, which are both based in London) and the public-sector organisation ArtReach, to design the three-part prototype immersive and interactive experience.
It will first capture the audience/participants’ attitudes towards the UK asylum process and Refugees and Asylum Seekers (RAS) in the UK. It will then use interactive, affective techniques to put them inside the RAS experience of the asylum-seeking process, including its legal and bureaucratic procedures.
Finally, it will use integrated digital technologies to re-capture and map the audience/participants’ attitudes towards RAS and the UK Asylum process. Their feedback will also be integrated into future performances. The project will begin in the spring of 2018, with events testing the prototype taking place in winter 2018.