- Posted on 27 May 2025
- 2-minute read
UTS researchers and artists will take part in this year’s Vivid Ideas program with I Dream of Reality, an immersive Extended Reality (XR) and Virtual Reality (VR) exhibition exploring how dreams, memory and emerging technologies can reframe our understanding of the future.
The exhibition, presented by UTS’s Creative Practice Research Group (CPRG), runs on Tuesday 3 and Thursday 5 June from 6 to 8.30pm at UTS. It is part of Vivid Sydney’s program of ideas-driven events and showcases works that span climate storytelling, AI-generated imagery, speculative futures and digital landscapes.
Audiences will experience multiple immersive installations that reimagine the future, revisit personal and cultural memories, and explore how creativity and research can converge in new and interactive ways.
Exploring future worlds through immersive storytelling
The exhibition features five original works developed by UTS researchers and artists from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
The Other Edis by audiovisual artist Seana Dubh invites audiences into a dreamlike VR environment that moves between shimmering caves, robotic insect factories and mist-filled forests. The work explores how sound, light and visual design evoke emotional responses and feelings of uncanniness.
Oneironaut 1975–2025 by Justin Harvey draws on a recurring childhood dream and uses generative AI to reconstruct it within a surreal digital landscape. The piece reflects on time, memory and the environmental cost of emerging technologies.
Collective Visions, created by Julia Scott-Stevenson and Thomas Ricciardiello, uses generative AI to allow audiences to co-create visions of hopeful futures. In Collective Visions II, developed with Matt Hughes, viewers encounter holographic 3D interviews with Australians involved in climate action, accessed through mixed reality headsets.
Tunnel Visions by Gregory Ferris blends AI-generated imagery, historical aesthetics and immersive animation to reimagine the Australian landscape through the structure of a 19th-century tunnel book. The work prompts reflection on the colonial gaze and the layered nature of storytelling.
UTS at the forefront of creative technology
Through I Dream of Reality, UTS highlights its growing contribution to the creative industries and research in immersive media. The CPRG supports interdisciplinary projects that use creative practice to address complex challenges, often integrating technology, storytelling and social insight.
More information is available via the Vivid Sydney website.