VR takes audiences back to the Second World War

The VR program allows the public to explore Guy Gibson’s Lancaster of the Second World War.

Virtual reality allows people to experience situations they might otherwise never see. Ranging from the unlikely, such as space travel, or the realistic, such as scuba-diving, anything is possible with VR and the right story. VR has helped blind people experience art for the first time and take art lovers back to the 1910s with a tour of a famous painter’s studio. Technology is helping open people’s minds to things they never thought they could experience.

Creative technology startup All Seeing Eye has taken its own spin on this ability with its Immersive Histories experience. The immersive VR offering allows an audience to physically step into history. Users can witness the famous ‘Dambusters’ mission from on board Guy Gibson’s Lancaster during the Second World War. It is based in an accurate physical set of a Lancaster and audiences experience complete immersion. They even have the ability to reach out and feel the surroundings. Inside the aircraft, discussions take place over the intercom and the night time landscape zooms past the audience. Users wear haptic vests integrated into authentic ‘Mae West’ life preservers so they can feel the roar of a Lancaster engine and booms of the German flak. The experience was created with support from Other Set and the RAF Museum.

All Seeing Eye was named one of Digital Catapult and Art Council England’s 20 CreativeXR teams to watch at the start of the year. CreativeXR is a new program enabling the UK’s arts and cultural sector to lead the field in immersive content creation and digital innovation.

This innovation has also been featured in the report ‘The Future of Immersive Content’, which was inspired by recent research conducted by our partner Digital Catapult, the UK’s leading advanced digital technology innovation centre. Download the full report here.