Bridging the Gaps brings together a cluster of pre-selected UK-China experts with complementary skills to explore the potential of mixed reality performance in bridging Shanghai's rural and urban communities and developing respective creative economies. By "mixed reality performance" we mean performance that uses common and novel technologies to merge "real" and "virtual" worlds in the audience's experience and through which material, digital objects and actors interact in real time. Such performances may be fixed or locative and take place across one or multiple sites. This proposed project will focus on new and innovative performances of Chinese Opera, a form of popular culture traditionally relating to rural communities, as a case study to establish new China-UK research-industry partnerships and projects for long term development. Xi Jinpings' Presidency of China has, from 2014, placed increasing emphasis on balancing rural-urban social economic development and positioned traditional Chinese art forms, including Chinese opera, as the anchor of China's creative and cultural industries (CCI). Since 1992, Shanghai has been identified by the Chinese Central Government as the 'Head of the Dragon' to lead economic development, yet disconnections between rural and urban communities and their respective creative practices and economies persist and have held CCI developments back. Shanghai's rural-urban divisions exemplify these challenges. Shanghai is separated into Pudong and Puxi: the former originally comprising of underdeveloped rural countryside; the latter occupying affluent economic and cultural quarters built by former British, French and other foreign concessions. Whilst Western imported modern drama has been established since the early 20th century in Shanghai Puxi, as the symbol of Shanghai's young middle class - represented by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre - Chinese opera, a form of popular culture, predominantly relating to rural communities and rural migrant workers in urban cities, carries low social and cultural capital and struggles to engage with the young urban audience. By 2016, China emerged as the second largest economy in the world. Chinese opera has been fused with tourism for regional economic development and global soft power insertion, exemplified in 2017 by the £100 million investment in building an opera village, which includes a digital technology opera museum, at Shanghai Pudong Chuansha village, the very same village where the world's latest Disneyland Resort was opened a year earlier. Meanwhile, all five Shanghai Opera Houses (Kun Opera, Beijing Opera, All-female Yue Opera, Hu Opera, Huai Opera), whose offices are situated in Puxi's former French concession area but have no public performance space, receive increasing government subsidies for productions and new theatre complexes. However, both the Opera Village in Pudong and Opera Houses in Puxi continue to struggle to engage the young urban audience and attract visitors. Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, which locates amongst the cluster of five Shanghai opera houses in Puxi and is China's largest modern drama theatre outside Beijing, has never collaborated with any of the opera houses. The gaps in Shanghai between urban-rural, modern-tradition may be subtle, but thorough. The UK-China research-industry partners have worked together under the 2019 (February - July) AHRC award UK-China Creative Industries Partnership Development "Bridging the Gaps", in which collaborative themes, methods and outcomes have been explored and a number of outputs, including a documentary film and special edition of Shanghai Arts Review, have been generated. Building on the achievements of the first stage partnership development, this proposal brings together a team of pre-selected UK-China research-industry partners with shared vision and commitment, through financial investment/in-kind contribution, to advance the collaboration.

This project proposes as new partnership between the Centre of Architecture and the Visual Arts (CAVA), Aardman Animations, China Media Capital (CMC) and the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) that is the basis for a new alliance between the UK and CCI/Media organisations in the Shanghai region. The aim of this a research/industry partnership is to collaborate on a unique, location-based, mixed reality cinema experience in a specially designed theatre in Shanghai. Shaun the Sheep is already a global entertainment brand known principally for its linear, animated, non-dialogue content (movies; TV series). We therefore will focus on technical, creative and business innovation rather than on audience acquisition. It will also put Aardman Animations at the forefront of developing innovation, new methods, new knowledge and, through creating new audiences, access to a new market. Technological innovation will be co-created with partners in the UK and China. By using mixed reality technology (e.g. holograms tracked by computer vision), we will be blurring the traditional boundaries between the screen and cinema space, creating a new "narrative space" in which audiences are part of and feel fully immersed. Imagine sitting in a cinema where a new Shaun the Sheep short is playing; yet the audience will be sitting in an auditorium that is digitally enhanced and art directed to look like it is part of the film. Characters will leave the two-dimensional canvas to continue their story in the auditorium space. We plan to take cinema experience and immersive storytelling to a new level.

This is an ambitious interdisciplinary collaborative project aiming to facilitate UK-Shanghai business in the theatre and performance space, focusing on immersive and mixed reality experiences, via curated networking and partnership building events involving creative IP companies, academics and technical partners in the UK and Shanghai, including a series of Investor Showcases to fund development of concepts/IP surfaced by project partners. Our UK-Shanghai Consortium will be led by Goldsmiths, University of London, and will include: - leading UK arts, cultural, immersive and digital content partners - leading Shanghai arts, tech, immersive and academic partners The project will result in sustainable model boosting economic impact of immersive and strong legacy collaborative R&D space, where project partners will share interest in commercial distribution company to be set up in Shanghai. Other setting up one or more companies in Shanghai, we will also build: - Goldsmiths Shanghai Research Centre - Social VR and online digital platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration, incorporating immersive technology

Proposed Activity: Our aim is to deliver a world-first in research innovation (i.e. technical, methodological, creative application) that will transform the delivery of Aardman's high-end animation work (Shaun the Sheep) from a currently linear and pre-rendered end-user product (e.g. TV/cinema screen-based) into a non-linear, real-time, responsive, spatially immersive experience; one that can be enjoyed by a wide (family) audience in China (without the need for headsets, gloves or pre-rendered animation) whilst recognising China's cultural context and values in the realisation of this work. Rationale and Research/Industry Context: The animation market is increasingly challenged by changes in media consumption and modes of distribution. This innovation will focus on the development of shared experiences for the family entertainment market that will turn the passive observers of screen-based storytelling into active participants. We will create a novel digital-physical spatial experience that embodies the spirit, ethos and participatory nature of games, built around interaction, responsiveness and immersion. With the global games audience estimated between 2.2 and 2.6 billion (UKIE), and a significant number of these in China, we believe that this project will catalyse the development of transformative approaches to engaging animation audiences in novel, and more participatory, experiences. Research Aim: This research links three significant domains of knowledge in the family entertainment market which can be expressed as a simple equation: Audience + Animation + Space + Games Technology = narrative, interactive, spatial experiences. Facilitating this, the project will combine research and creative practice expertise from the fields of animation, architecture, creative media arts, theatrical arts, engineering, AI and robotics as well as gaming. Combining immersive spaces with real-time audio-visual content has precedence, predominantly within media art installations, however, our audience-focussed, spatially immersive, and responsive approach to storytelling differs substantially from what we might have called in the past "immersive cinema". Furthermore, due to the application of a quasi-intelligent system (supported by AI) we are developing new territories for Aardman and the wider animation sector. By combining the "scalability" of film/animation with the "intimacy" and responsiveness of immersive experiences, we are seeking to redefine the term "mixed reality" (as a family experience with no headsets, no gloves and no mobile phones), providing a scalable concept that could generate significant impact within and beyond the creative industry sector. In the context of this project, we are calling our approach "responsive cinema". Research Questions & Methodology: Our research raises critical practice-based research questions in the following six areas: WP1 Story & Conceptional Realisation; WP2 Dynamic Content Creation; WP3 Game & Interaction Design; WP4 AI & Sensoring; WP5 Target Audience; WP6 Space Integration - all of which will require a uniquely tailored, interdisciplinary methodological approach.