Funding, Organisations

Quotidian, Big Telly Theatre, Armstrong Storytelling & Void to share in £40,000 Lottery funding

20th December, 2022

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland today (Tuesday 20 December 2022) announced £40,000 of National Lottery funding to support four arts organisations based in Northern Ireland in the creation of four innovative digital arts projects.

Male in blue shirt using virtual reality headset.
Organisations Digital Evolution Awards

The funding is part of the Arts Council’s Organisations Digital Evolution Awards, a programme which aims to support those making of digital art for the first time or are working with digital or immersive technology which they have not used previously. Among those offered up to £10,000 each of National Lottery funding are; Quotidian, Big Telly Theatre Company, Armstrong Storytelling Trust and Derry-Londonderry’s Void Gallery.

Karly Greene, Director of Strategic Development and Partnerships, at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, commented,

“Today’s announcement is welcome news and I congratulate all of the organisations involved. Thanks to The National Lottery, this programme will support the creation of art using digital and immersive technologies, and will help organisations to develop skills in the use of new technologies. The Organisations Digital Evolution form Awards reflects the Arts Council’s commitment to encouraging innovative practices that cross art form boundaries and build digital capabilities within the Northern Ireland arts sector and I look forward to experiencing these exciting projects as they develop.”

Among those offered funding through the Organisations Digital Evolution Awards are:

Quotidian
Funding amount offered: £10,000
Project title: Pop Up Poet - Augmented Reality/ Volumetric Capture - Poetry Readings

Quotidian put literature into public spaces with the aim of making literature more accessible for everyone. With this project they propose to experiment with volugrams (volumetric holograms) of a poet to create an immersive poetry experience which is innovative, replicable, shareable and affordable.

As part of this project Quotidian will commission a new poem by Arts Council of Northern Ireland Major Individual Awardee Moyra Donaldson and launch the project in a pop-up poetry lab in a public space as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival in the autumn of 2023.

Big Telly Theatre Company
Funding amount offered: £10,000
Project title: Rear Windows

Rear Windows is an ambitious fusion of digital theatre, immersive storytelling and game design, involving a live experience, an engagement programme and a permanent digital legacy. The project will take place in Big Telly’s virtual venue, Brick Moon.

Both the creation process and the experience will be participatory, with remote audiences invited to wander through a series of virtual spaces, meeting characters, encountering unexplored stories hinted at in the film and influencing the action and outcomes. In addition to a piece of immersive, multi-site digital theatre set in Brick Moon, permanent recorded sections of the performance and an interactive feature will also be embedded within Brick Moon.

Armstrong Storytelling Trust
Funding amount offered: £9,521
Project title: Immersive/ Online Story-Animation Collaboration

Armstrong Storytelling Trust will support and develop the recent digital work undertaken by two artists – Vicky McFarland (storyteller) and Corrina Askin (illustrator/ animator) – by commissioning a new cross-discipline piece of digital story art for young audiences.

The project will create an animated story show which mixes live storytelling with projected animated character(s) and an open narrative structure to allow audience discussion, thinking and learning outcomes.

Using the professional skills and experience of these two artists, this show will target Early Years and/or KS1 audiences with a focus on emotional literacy and wellbeing outcomes.

VOID Arts Centre
Funding amount offered: £9,223
Project title: Locky Morris & Jaki Irvine Exhibition

Void has invited Jaki Irvine and Locky Morris to work in collaboration to create newly commissioned and produced work for an exhibition at Void Gallery in 2023. The site specific works in the gallery will explore the relationship between digital space and real space. The works will be a collaboration between the artists and they will create works using CGI and 3D digital models. For this exhibition Locky Morris and Jaki Irvine will explore the digital realm and its absorption into our everyday lives.

The Organisations Digital Evolution Awards scheme is now closed with all available funding allocated. For details on all Arts Council funding opportunities visit www.artscouncil-ni.org/funding