Expanded Realities

Projects

A theatrical performance featuring a performer interacting with a projected historical image of a protest scene. The black-and-white projection covers the entire backdrop and partially overlays the performer creating a layered visual effect. The performer, kneeling, reaches upward, aligning their silhouette with the image.

A theatrical performance featuring three performers interacting with a projected historical image of a protest scene. The black-and-white projection covers the entire backdrop and partially overlays the performers, creating a layered visual effect. One performer on the left, dressed in black, holds a microphone. The central performer, kneeling, reaches upward, aligning their silhouette with the image. The performer on the right, in a hoodie and sneakers, raises both arms, merging with the projected figure in a striking visual illusion.

Developing DIY XR technology to share powerful stories within site-specific political theatre. Common/Wealth see the power immersive technology has in shaping our futures - how stories are told and by who. Like theatre, we think this should belong to everyone.

Through our action-based research, we are expanding our understanding of what a DIY, low budget approach to XR tech can afford us by developing innovative approaches to immersive storytelling within site specific theatre, for and with performers and working-class audiences.

Common/Wealth shares stories in non-traditional ways. Our process is collaborative, open and playful. Collaborating with Creative Technologist Nathaniel Mason, we have been developing low-cost XR and immersive technologies for site-specific performance as an integral part of Demand the Impossible, our new show interrogating police infiltration of activist networks and UK police injustice, premiering in Newport, South Wales, October 2025.

Part performance, part gig, part sensory experience Demand the Impossible will challenge audiences to question truth, trust, power and overlapping realities - as uncomfortable relationships between the state, police and citizens are exposed. Inspired by the experience of police infiltration by the Cardiff Anarchist network, it’s informed by interviews with activists spied on by undercover police, material by Police Spies Out of Lives and Spycops Info Podcast. The show has been developed with a company of artists, performers and activist advisors.

We want our audience to see, feel, hear, empathise, understand - to be moved. Demand the Impossible will play with the senses; a reverberating live score, pumping techno, immersive audio, live visuals, AI driven XR, and virtual production techniques will combine to create a world reaching back to 1968, travelling across decades of civil action into the 21st century and beyond, touching on “the futures they [the undercovers] stole from us”.

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£50,000

A dynamic performance scene featuring a woman in the foreground gripping a microphone, singing or speaking with intensity. She wears a light-colored sweatshirt, and her face is illuminated by moody blue and purple stage lighting. Behind her, a man in a dark outfit raises his fist in the air, adding to the energy of the moment. Another performer is slightly blurred in the background, engaged with equipment. The dramatic lighting and close-up framing emphasise the emotional and expressive nature of the performance.

A dimly lit performance scene in an intimate venue with a hazy atmosphere. A man wearing glasses and a watch holds a microphone, passionately performing. Another person, holding a smartphone on a stabilizer, records the moment up close. A third individual, partially visible in the foreground, attentively engages with the performance. In the background, a projection screen displays an image of another performer, enhancing the immersive ambiance. The setting includes warm and cool lighting, creating a moody and cinematic effect.

Aims of the Project

Common/Wealth’s work is all about building movements. We see our shows as campaigns. It’s about telling big political stories and creating ripples of change. It’s also about shaping who gets to make and tell those stories, and how.

We build knowledge and skills as we go, and we try and shape the sector. By addressing head on class injustice within the arts, we create pathways and new networks. Funding from Expand will help us do this by furthering our research, experience and application of immersive technology.

We want XR technology to be part of Common/Wealth’s toolkit and available to the working class creatives and audiences we work with. With this funding we will be able to work at scale, taking our low budget, DIY approach to larger audiences. Our DIY ethos isn’t just about budget lines. By using materials and tech equipment people are familiar with (for example, live streaming from mobile phones) it makes this technology feel within reach of our audience, that it’s familiar and they can relate to it, enabling the storytelling and sensory experience to seamlessly immerse them into our performative world.

We will experiment and push the potential roles XR technology has within theatre. Our Creative Technologist has become part of the performance as a silent character streaming footage; framing and reframing the world the audience is immersed in. We will keep pushing form, and will be exploring the potential this technology may offer us for touring a digital edition of the show to conventional and community spaces.

How did they do that?

Common/Wealth:

Artistic Director: Rhiannon White
Executive Director: Ali Dunican
Creative Producer: Camilla Brueton
Community Producer: Chantal Williams
Communications Associate: Rachel Dawson

Creative Company:

Creative Technologist: Nathaniel Mason
Choreographer: Gareth Chambers
Writer: Taylor Edmonds
Visual Design: Studio of Mark Gubb
Performers: Bianca Ali, Hussina Raja, Soul Roberts
Composition and live music: Ollie Emanuel, Ruari Floyd, Jassen Summogum
Immersive Audio Technician: Bartholomew Mason

Activist Advisors:

Tom Fowler – Spycops Info Podcast
Chris Brian – Undercover Research Group

We are is excited to develop our approach to immersive arts alongside our artists and audiences. We see the power immersive technology has in shaping our futures—how stories are told and by whom. Like theatre, we think this should belong to everyone.

Meet the artists

Common/Wealth

Founded in 2008, Common/Wealth is based in Cardiff and Bradford. We make site-specific theatre events encompassing devised performance, new writing, visual design and verbatim. Our work is political and contemporary – addressing the concerns of our times.

We collaborate with arts, non-arts and grass-roots partners, education and community organisations; engaging communities hyper-locally in Wales and across the UK. We stage our work in places where people who might not go to the theatre, might come instead.

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Sharon Clark & Jack Hardiker-Bresson