Henry Driver’s new immersive video journey, Secrets of Soil, was inspired by his family’s attempts to make their farming practices carbon negative. He presents a visually striking view of the world beneath our feet and explores his thoughts around how it would be possible to better care for and preserve it.
The earth beneath our feet is a complex ecosystem of microscopic life. However, this fragile world is all too easily upset. A new interactive artwork reveals a rarely-seen landscape of fungi, bacteria and other microscopic organisms, and shows how caring for our soil can play a role in capturing carbon and helping the fight against climate change.
During production, artist Henry Driver was keen to go the extra mile to make the artwork accessible to as many people as possible, and the resulting project is available in different formats. While the full version is designed to push the visual capabilities of high end PCs, there is also a 360-degree video version which will run on nearly any phone, tablet or laptop.
For Driver, the New Creatives collaboration has reinforced the importance of making his work accessible. “This project has firmly cemented online free interactive artwork as a cornerstone of my practice. I believe that art needs to be available and accessible for as many people as possible. This was one of my mantras for the project, and is something I want to continue with.”
For more information on this project you can see the BBC webpage here.
To experience the full interactive version via steam click here
You can see the 360 degree version on YouTube here