The Abandoned Library

Project partners: Dreaming Methods, One to One Development Trust, Yorkshire Film Archive, The Art House, Wakefield Libraries

XR Stories is providing research and development funding and expertise to help Wakefield-based studio, Dreaming Methods, develop their immersive storytelling prototype. 

Set in a future Northern England devastated by climate change, The Abandoned Library will explore compelling new ways of presenting words and writing as part of an intricately detailed and atmospheric audio-visual experience.

Following a young protagonist working as part of an environmental clean-up operation, the story introduces an Artificially Intelligent (AI) librarian that has spent the last 80 years gathering data from the architecture and landscape it inhabits. 

The experience will fuse nature, language, and technology to create a connected, hopeful and resilient narrative set amidst the turbulent surroundings of an imagined future world,  devastated by the consequences of previous generations’ mistakes.

The project team plans to showcase The Abandoned Library at festivals, galleries and libraries before commercial release. 

The Abandoned Library is one of four projects awarded R&D funding and expertise from the OpenXR 2 funding call. 

Categories: Research, Technology