Projects
Stories in Stone – Connecting People and Place
Stories in Stone – Connecting People and Place
An exploration of how immersive technologies might be used within a public art practice to enhance and broaden engagement.
How might a carved stone artwork speak of the stories it holds and the place in which it stands? When an artwork is encountered in the public realm there is typically little supporting contextual information available. What is the potential for using immersive technology as a platform for enhancing engagement and which approaches are be best placed to perform this function?
This project explores how immersive technologies can enhance and broaden engagement with public art. My own public artworks often involve large carved stones incorporating narrative panels that draw on the ecological, historical and social context of their location. The stones appear at first like curious artefacts with the content of the carvings merging historical references, folklore and storytelling.
To support engagement with the work I have previously developed interpretative booklets or made contextual information available online. However, this will rarely be accessed by the people who come across the work. The project will examine the role that immersive technologies might play in bringing the carvings to life and facilitating access to the research, carving process and historical references in the work.
Explore
£5,000
Aims of the Project
I am aiming to gain a greater understanding of the role that immersive technology could play within my public art practice.
The funding will allow for research, training and the development of skills to better answer the following key areas of enquiry:
- Can extended reality be used to connect people with the story of the landscape in which they stand?
- How might augmented reality animate narrative stone carvings or provide access to audio description?
- What is the potential for using immersive technology to engage people with my own artistic process – for example can I share the stone carving process itself, provide access to the research material I have explored or provide a platform for oral history recordings?
Meet the artist
James Winnett
Lead artist
he/him
James Winnett is an artist, stone carver and workshop leader interested in the crossovers between sculpture, archaeology, folklore, place and memory. Working primarily in public art, sculpture and film, he has developed a range of public art projects across the UK and Ireland.
