Austin Wolfe recently completed his PhD in Cinematic VR at The Glasgow School of Art. Over his time here, Austin created three interactive VR cinematic experiences - all of which have been shown at international film festivals, and garnered a BAFTA award for Austin along the way!

His first cinematic VR project, Journey, was initially created by Austin Wolfe for his final MSc research project while he was studying for the MSc Serious Games & VR.

Journey is an experiment in emotional cinematic storytelling in VR - storytelling without any words or dialogue. Journey takes viewers deep under the sea as they follow the adventures of a whale calf, separated from its pod, through danger to eventual safety.

The project has itself been on something of a journey - Austin continued to work on Journey while working on his PhD at GSA, and more recently submitted it to the 2023 Aesthetica Film Festival, where it was selected for part of the programme.

Aonar, his second project, is an immersive virtual-reality story experience, based on Scottish folk-tales. Aonar won the 2022 Yugo Bafta Student Award for Best Immersive Project, as detailed here. Aonar has been translated into both Scots and Scottish Gaelic, and is available for free download on Steam here.

Austin's final project for his PhD was Isle (shown above). This was shown at both the ANIFILM festival in the Czech Republic and Raindance UK in 2024. Isle follows the adventures of a small boy as he seeks to rescue his sister from a Kelpie - a sea creature from Scottish folk-tales known for appearing on land as a horse and dragging victims into lochs.

Austin will be showing some of his work at the SGSAH 10 year showcase in October 2024, and you can find some of his publications on RADAR.