What happens when emerging technology meets the rich stories of Belfast?
At Nerve Centre, I’ve spent the last year exploring exactly that — bringing together AI and the voices of people across Belfast in an ambitious project that reimagines how stories are told and shared in new, powerful ways.
This work has been part of Augment the City, a challenge fund from Belfast City Council and Belfast Stories. Through the project, we’ve had the opportunity to collaborate closely with Hamilton Robson and 1 Up Studios — two leading companies in the design and build of creative and technical solutions.
The Story Dreamer has been tested in communities and public spaces across Belfast, where the AI interviewer appears as a hologram — an intricate particle system that gently invites people to open up and share.
Behind the scenes, an innovative database captures and organises these stories, linking them with archival material, creating a rich tapestry of Belfast’s past, present and future.
One of the things we set out to explore is how people engage with AI and whether they feel confident using it as a tool to help tell their stories. We designed the Story Dreamer not to take over the conversation, but to listen, to prompt and to support people as they share stories in their own words.
This process has shown us how technology can support the recording, storage and curation of large datasets of stories — while also delivering striking visuals through the latest digital tools.
Ultimately, it’s demonstrated that technology can enhance storytelling, not replace it.
Augment the City is part of the XR Belfast programme, funded by the Belfast Region City Deal. It seeks to advance Belfast City Council’s commitment to immersive technology, civic storytelling, and cultural innovation.