Blog 1 - What is Immersive?
What Does Immersive Mean?
‘Immersive’ is everywhere, but what do we really mean when we use the word?
It’s a phrase gathering momentum: in funding calls, strategy papers, public commissions, and tech showcases. But in practice, it can mean many things to many people.
For us, it’s a field I’ve worked in for over 20 years, beginning with installations and film, later expanding into digital, animation and real-time formats. Around seven years ago, we founded SUUM Studio, where immersive design has become our core practice.
Technology plays a part. So does emotion, intention, and craft. But more than anything, we believe it’s about the audience, who the work is for and why, how it makes them feel, what it asks of them, and how it involves them.
With our Creative Scotland-funded research project, The Immersive Lens, we took a pause from making immersive work to explore how others define and develop it. Across Manchester and the wider UK, we met with producers, technologists, curators, artists, and strategists, and asked one deceptively simple question: What does immersive mean to you?
Supermassive UK Depot Mayfield Immersive Entertainment Experience Event July 2025 Image © SUUM studio
What does immersive mean to you?
“Immersive, to me, is about presence. Not just visual fidelity or flashy tech, it’s about how much of yourself is pulled into the experience.”
— Jed Ashforth, Immersive Experience Specialist, Realised Realities
“One of the threads is world-building, creating layered stories where the physical and virtual blend… to go beyond what’s humanly possible, to shift perspectives, or even create new ones.”
— Myra Appannah, Co-Director, Brightblack
“We see immersive not just as spatial, but as participatory… Immersive should be co-created with its audience.”
— Simon Wilkinson, Co-Director, Brightblack
“Immersive isn’t a medium, it’s a mindset. It’s about building systems that allow audiences to explore, feel, and impact the work.”
— Sam Hunt, Chief Creative Officer, AIX Live
“It’s when sound, visuals, narrative, everything is working together to pull you deeper into an idea or feeling. It’s active, not passive.”
— Anny Deery, Producer, Inner Ear UK
“Immersive design is about presence, creating something so engaging that your sense of time or place shifts… it becomes feeling.”
— Charles Turtle, Technical Director, SUUM Studio
“Immersive is something that supports a viewer to step from the objective position and become an active participant... to enter and share a concept as experience.”
— Pauline McCloy-Turtle, Creative Director, SUUM Studio
Beyond Van Gogh, SEC, August 2024 Image © SUUM studio
Why Defining Immersive Matters
What emerged from these conversations wasn’t a single definition, but a shared recognition that immersive practice is not defined by technology, but by depth of engagement.
Whether through VR, sound, projection, or participatory design, what matters is how the work draws people in, not just around them, but into a meaningful relationship with the idea, story, or environment.
As the Immersive Arts UK report notes:
“Immersive doesn’t just mean wearing a headset, it’s about how we involve audiences emotionally, spatially, and socially.”
— Early Days of the Immersive Exhibition Network, p.4
That emotional and social resonance is key. Many of the practitioners we spoke to see co-creation and audience agency as essential to immersion.
“The key difference in immersive art is the degree of agency audiences are given. They are not just spectators, but often co-creators of the experience.”
— Immersive Arts UK, p.6
These ideas echo our own experience at SUUM Studio. We work at the intersection of art, technology, and storytelling, but the common thread is always transformation. The best immersive work lingers. It changes how you feel, or how you see the world.
As immersive media becomes a cultural buzzword, now is the time to anchor it in practice, people, and purpose. The risk of reducing it to novelty tech or hype is real. But so is the opportunity to shape it into something lasting, not just eye-catching, but meaningful.
Next up Blog 2: Who is immersive work really for?
Because defining immersive is only the beginning. What matters is who gets to make it, who gets to experience it, and how we build more inclusive futures, questions we’ll explore in our next post.
Coming Soon
This is the first in a new blog and video series sharing insights from The Immersive Lens, a Creative Scotland-funded research project by SUUM Studio.
Subscribe to SUUM NEWS or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok for more on The Immersive Lens blog series, to receive details on new drops, behind-the-scenes, and future collabs.
About The Immersive Lens
This blog is part of The Immersive Lens, a Creative Scotland–supported research project by SUUM Studio. With funding from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Go See Share programme, we travelled to Manchester to explore how immersive creatives across the UK are sustaining their work, creatively, financially, and emotionally.
Over the course of the project, we engaged with more than 20 practitioners working at the intersection of immersive arts, technology, design, and storytelling. We visited exhibitions, attended public and industry events, and held in-depth interviews with artists, technologists, curators, producers, and strategists shaping the future of immersive practice.
What we heard, and what we saw, is shaping this blog and vlog series. Each post will share insights, provocations, and reflections drawn from our field research, in the hope that they’ll support others navigating this evolving landscape.
The Immersive Lens was supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
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