A transformative immersive experience using virtual content to turn the streets and landmarks of Bristol into a colourful, sci-fi-infused digital jungle, awash with mesmerising visuals and local music – no app required.
Fireflies is a jungle-infused augmented reality show taking place outside the legendary Lakota Club in Bristol. It is a new format of animated digital street art which celebrates Bristol’s music culture and is easily accessed by following a QR code on your smartphone.
Your journey starts by joining Firefly Odyssey, a tour company specialising in the observation of inter-dimensional wildlife. Under their guidance, you will get to see a rare incursion. The Moon Street Lokata mural bursts into life, becoming a portal to another dimension and sparking a visitation by a rebellious group of fireflies on a mission to escape repression on their home world and party like their life depended on it.
Fireflies is Glitch AR’s first audio-visual spectacular set to local Jungle artist Arcane’s track Curse of the Pharaohs (Rua Sound) and featuring an awe-inspiring light show by award-winning virtual world builder Screaming Color.
Fireflies showcase took place 5 – July 2023 at Lakota (corner of Moon street).
The Team
Fireflies is a collaboration with GlitchAR and award-winning metaverse artist Screaming Color whose virtual worlds have been displayed at many international film festivals including Venice and SXSW.
GlitchAR create glitches, short-form stories, art pieces and musical experiences brought to life through the magic of augmented reality. GlitchAR includes Emmy Nominated XR producer and ex-head of Immersive Entertainment for NBCUniversal Michael Salmon and founder of Bath-based interactive media studio Whiley & Co. Ossian Whiley.
Michael is an immersive producer and co-founder of the creative studio GlitchAR. He has been part of the XR community since Oculus shipped their first dev kits in 2013. During his time as head of Immersive Technology at NBCUniversal, he set up the studio’s first dedicated immersive entertainment team and was the creator/producer on many XR productions. These include large-scale, multi-million dollar experiences, technical R&D projects, and 2 years of researching and prototyping a social VR product: Universal Worlds.
Ossian is a Co-founder of Glitch AR and a creative technology specialist with development skills spanning AR, VR, and on-location experiences. He started his professional journey almost 20 years ago in Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) and has been responsible for the strategic implementation of data rich building information models for prestigious projects including The Shard, News Building and the new THFC stadium. He has since found a niche as an emerging technology analyst and successfully identified, designed and deployed transformative technology within large corporate environments.
Screaming Color, Christopher Lane Davis, considers himself first and foremost a musician, and is also passionate about writing, performing, photography, filmmaking, 3D design, and rainbows. In 2020 he created his VRChat worlds Club Gumball and Gumball lounge, and joined Ferryman Collective for their award winning VR Show Welcome to Respite. He has won ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Concept’ at Campus MovieFest, Audience Award at SXSW (2022), Best Immersive Performance at Raindance (2022), and the Grand Prize at Kaohsiung Film Festival.
