How do we use new or unexpected technologies to tell complex stories about research and other kinds of intellectual experience, in ways that people can see, feel, and interact with?

Immersive Realities in Digital Humanities (IRiDH)* workgroup members design and build innovative forms of digital and experimental scholarship. Our work pushes the boundaries of scholarly communication by bringing together storytelling, research, and emerging technologies— from web and extended reality (XR) to hybrid bookmaking, physical computing, and craft-based media.

People working with IRiDH gain experience in a range of technical and creative skills as they design and manage projects, collaborate with other thinkers, and develop sustainable tools for digital and experimental storytelling. IRiDH projects translate research into engaging, multimodal forms, broadening what counts as scholarship and creating new ways to reach a diverse range of audiences. Some current IRiDH projects include VR experiences built from photogrammetric scans of family homes seemingly lost to diaspora, interactive projection experiences that help users feel rhythm and flow in poetry, a text-based game introducing African and Afrofuturist literature, a memoir told through forms inspired by vintage videogames, an augmented reality quilting project, and a system that translates data onto punch cards used to drive knitting machines!

Despite the diversity of our projects, we all share a willingness to experiment, make, and discover new forms of expression. At IRiDH, students learn to think across disciplines and to collaborate across levels of experience, refining their own ideas and taking creative risks while building sustainable projects attuned to the ethical and creative challenges of representing lived experience, social difference, and embodied knowledge through multimedia forms.

No prior experience is required. Students at IRiDH learn by participating in ongoing projects, gaining hands-on experience across full creative and technical pipelines. In building creative and intellectual community, workgroup members also learn assess, curate, and maintain shared resources as they move work from concept and research to design, development, and public presentation. Students grow into roles that match their interests— technical, creative, or organizational— and are encouraged to develop their own ideas using the resources of IRiDH’s affiliate labs and initiatives also housed at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), for instance the African American Digital and Experimental Humanities initiative (AADHum), NarraSpace XR, the Small Games Lab, and Soft Souls Foundry. If desired, students may also join in developing and facilitate workshops in public libraries and other community venues across the DMV.