Project creates 3D portraits of Hastings and St Leonards residents

The XR22 Project is a digital, 3D mass-portrait of the town using the latest emerging XR technologies – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, 3D scanning and WebAR.

The project will be run by Hastings Commons in collaboration with the project’s Creative Directors, ZEROH, who plan to collaborate with the community of Hastings and St Leonards to create a series of unique portraits.

It will take place from July 2022 until September 2022 at the Digital Arts Hub, Rock House, Hastings.

A spokesperson for ZEROH sad: “Right now there is an exciting surge in new technologies relating to the digitising of objects, spaces and people in 3 Dimensions. As part of our residency we have been given the opportunity to use cutting edge digital tools at the Digital Arts Hub and we plan to capture the town in 3D with the idea of creating an online interactive digital snapshot of Hastings and St Leonards in 2022.

"As Hastings grows and technologies develop we hope the online repository will become a point of reference, a key visual asset for the town and a new kind of shared community interactive project that will be viewable online and in VR for generations to come.”

Residents of Hastings and St Leonards have been invited to visit the studio for a 3D portrait scan, which will be added to the XR22 archive and be viewable via a unique QR code.

The spokesperson added: "We are also inviting people to bring along an Object of Significance - personal items with a story, history or connection they’d like to share - to be added to the repository in order to build a digital snapshot of the town and its community at this unique moment in time. ”

Those interested are invited to book a free 30 minute session which will involve having a portrait taken for around a minute. Once scanned each subject is given visiting card featuring a sharable QR code