The Story of the Digital Aquarium
What is the Digital Aquarium:
The digital aquarium is an innovation and experiential media research 'lab' that is focused on the idea of exploring tools and practices of the future and how audiences and content creators will engage in content creation and consumption built off industry research and trend analysis. At its heart, it is a resource that explores tools and technologies not tied to any one particular course or module and is designed to encourage explorative learning through practice.
It is a resource that I manage and founded however its origins are not known by everyone and even its name has a history.
Origins
It was around 2016 when the foundations for what would turn into the digital aquarium were founded, an upcoming revalidation for a course that I support resulted in certain tools and production practices being removed or otherwise covered in less detail due to new module requirements and course direction. At this time there was an overlap of students from those who had experienced and got their hands on these tools and technologies and those who didn't and it felt weird to me that equipment was going to essentially be shelved. So I started to run optional classes to cover areas that were no longer going to be covered as part of the syllabus ensuring equipment and resources were still in use and trying and build parity between years during the transitional period.
This was supported by my first manager a fantastic guy who like myself was very much interested in technology and the future practices that ultimately would become mainstream alongside my unofficial mentor and friend, this helped build up my confidence and overtime provided me with teaching experience that was otherwise not made available to me.
These sessions did not have a name and mainly focused on AR, VR, Mobile, Web and game engines. I was one of the first within my department to see the direction production studios were following and how game engines would become part of mainstream production and introduce fields such as virtual production to our screens.
The Innovation Hub V1 - It featured a Chalk wall, Production Area and Meeting space
In 2018, I was given the chance to create a dedicated innovation and digital production suite in this space, initially titled simply the Innovation Lab was inspired by what would nowadays be seen as an immersion lab, a space designed to encourage creativity, build a relaxed, innovative atmosphere and promote technologies and practices of the future built on industry analytics and value. This space was a labour of love for me as I spent days decorating it, building it up and shaping it as an educational resource; however, this space was taken away less than a year later to make way for office space, which was a massive setback and knocked my self-confidence. My workshops before this had a regular average attendance of 30-40 students and were a space where external companies could come in, meet students, and ultimately showcase the institution as an innovative forward thinker.
The Innovation Hub website and Mobile Kiosk - Never deployed but would be an out-office support tool
It took a while to recover from this setback and ultimately failed due to a lack of support.
However much like the phoenix from the ashes something new would start to emerge and the idea and requests to cover these topics only continued and grew. I was offered a much smaller space to set up a spiritual successor from with a focus initially to be on Income generation and showcasing equipment and practices.
At this time the then head of school approached me and said the name of this new space should be Digital Aquarium as a lot of the areas covered are digital in nature and the space provided being outward facing was not unlike a fish tank (also kinda helped that my surname is Fisher), if I am honest this is not the name I would have chosen but agreed this new incarnation would need to be branded. However, before anything could begin we were hit by another change in school management and COVID lockdowns meaning face-to-face workshops were out of the question. This meant that for the next few years, the Digital Aquarium became essentially a workspace for EIG (income generation), whilst working on these external projects this opened up an opportunity for the digital aquarium to essentially start to gain access to new equipment and resources funded from these paid projects with the tools and practices being grounded in industry experience and practice.
This continued for a while after lockdowns ended as budgets tightened the need to innovate and think differently across the country only grew and I started to see similar spaces and ideas emerge at other institutions across the country from immersive labs to research and Virtual production facilities, I know that for the Digital Aquarium as a resource to survive and be beneficial to students it needs to permit students and staff access to on-topic industry practice and technologies, I have been fortunate enough to have over the years build connections with studios, technology companies, to visit and speak at other universities and ultimately try and feed this back into teaching via the Digital Aquarium.
Previous Website version until 2026
In late 2024 I decided to build and currently fund a dedicated website for these resources designed to be more modern and away from the structured tools currently in deployment as a resource for students but also to promote work and projects done.
Whilst the Digital Aquarium is run by me, my child and ultimately just a name given to the innovation and experiential media workshops, projects and research that I do I hope it will grow into what I have always wanted it to be, a shared resource for students and eventually move away from being on the sidelines and fringes and become a core part of the learning journey not just for the university but for the wider community as a whole, bringing in industry experts and promoting innovative thinking that goes beyond the tools and technologies but focusing on the individuals that make these a reality.
The Future
The future is very much up in the air and whilst I would like to see my dreams and ideas come to fruition I am also aware that without support and growth, it may fail. All of the materials I have curated and created can be taken with me and redeployed if needed and equipment is the universities and could be used elsewhere if decided however ultimately the Digital Aquarium, the innovation hub, and the optional masterclasses that came before have had an impact and have helped develop my own and others skill sets.