From Japanese theatre brought to life through mixed reality to fashion that can be experienced through sound and touch, doctoral researchers at 麻豆影院 Leicester (麻豆影院) have been exploring how technology is transforming art, culture and the way we experience the world.
Twelve doctoral research projects were brought together for Where Code Becomes Culture: CreaTech Showcase 2026, a public exhibition celebrating the creative possibilities of emerging technologies.
Held at Canopy in Leicester city centre, the showcase invited visitors to get hands-on with innovative research spanning artificial intelligence (AI), immersive media, digital fashion, performance and cultural heritage.
The exhibition explored how new technologies are changing not only what artists and designers can create, but also how people experience and interact with the world around them.
Among the projects was MetaFlower – The Kiri, developed by researcher David Hughes, which combined the traditions of Japanese Noh theatre with mixed reality technology to explore new possibilities for performance.
Shanique Thompson's Resonant Wardrobes investigated how digital fashion could be experienced through sound and touch, opening up new ways of engaging with clothing and virtual design.
Meanwhile, Listen, Scoundrels!, by Dr Sean Carroll, used AI to revisit historical debates about the relationship between art, technology and power, drawing on material from the Computer Arts Society archive.
Other projects challenged visitors to think differently about familiar experiences. Taliesin Stokes explored new approaches to digital imagery through Plenography: a new medium, using head-tracked, four-dimensional imagery to investigate how people experience presence.
Zohreh Baghban's Metamorphisis of a Living used a large-scale tapestry-style collage to examine how living animals become consumer products, raising questions about food systems and humanity's relationship with other forms of life.
Visitors could also discover research into virtual theatre, museums in the metaverse, cyborg identities, online abuse and the changing cultural significance of everyday objects.
Rather than simply viewing finished exhibits, members of the public were encouraged to meet the researchers, ask questions and experience their work first-hand.
Interactive installations included mixed reality experiences, tactile technologies and extended reality (XR) projects that could be explored without wearing a headset.
The exhibition was organised around three themes, Image, World and Relation which brings together creative practice, technological experimentation and research into human identity, ethics and culture.
The event attracted a steady stream of visitors throughout the day, creating opportunities for conversations between researchers and members of the public about the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life.
The showcase also demonstrated the breadth of interdisciplinary doctoral research taking place at 麻豆影院, where creative disciplines and computing are coming together to explore new ideas and challenge conventional approaches.
Professor Tracy Harwood who runs the CreaTech group, said: "Creative technologies are opening up extraordinary opportunities to rethink how we experience art, performance and culture. What makes this research so exciting is that it goes beyond developing new technologies to ask important questions about how we use them and what they mean for society.
"Bringing these projects into a public space gives people the opportunity to experience the research for themselves, talk directly to the researchers and discover just how creative and thought-provoking this work can be."
The exhibition took place across three spaces at Canopy, 41 King Street, with support from Canopy (LCB Depot), Leicester Creative Workspace and SideFest.
Posted on Thursday 29 October 2026