XR Stories works closely with cultural festivals and organisations to share knowledge, facilitate new collaborations and provide R&D support with developing and using extended reality technologies.
We provide advice and expertise in immersive and interactive digital technologies to help organisations tell new stories and to educate and inspire diverse audiences.
Supporting cultural organisations
XR Stories works with cultural organisations to support the development of interactive and immersive digital experiences and facilitate connections with companies, creatives and researchers in our network.
Find out about our recent activities including collaborations with York Archaeology/JORVIK Viking Centre, and York Museums Trust/The Yorkshire Museum.
To enquire about general support, please complete the XR Stories general support enquiries form.
Festival of Ideas
Led by the University of York, the Festival of Ideas takes place every June, offering two weeks of predominantly free events to educate, entertain and inspire audiences of all generations and backgrounds.
XR Stories hosted a series of ‘Toy Stories’ workshops to introduce children to motion capture technology. The workshops provided an opportunity for participants to craft their own story, direct a motion capture actor and watch a screening with their toy as a fully animated film star!
The 2026 Festival of Ideas is taking place from 30 May to 12 June 2026. As part of the festival, XR Stories will run a series of family-friendly demonstrations and workshops on some of the techniques used by film producers and game developers to join physical and digital worlds.
Subscribe to our communications and follow us on LinkedIn or BlueSky to receive updates on the workshops and all other news from the XR Stories team.
Aesthetica Short Film Festival
The Aesthetica Short Film Festival takes place in York every November, showcasing films, immersive VR and games alongside masterclasses, workshops and networking sessions.
Since 2023, XR Stories has provided expertise and equipment to support the festival and in 2024 and 2025, the XR Stories team co-programmed and curated the ASFF virtual reality (VR) strand, running the VR lab for the duration of the festival.
The XR Stories team have also collaborated with partners including Viridian FX, to run workshops and masterclasses including a free virtual production workshop for participants to gain hand-on experience of using virtual production technologies.