AGENCY - Immersive Sci-Fi - In Development, Oslo 2025-26
AGENCY is an immersive science-fiction drama currently in development, combining intimate theatre, digital interaction and laser scenography.
For three performers, it explores the walls we grow up within and later build around our lives; physical, psychological and temporal.
Created and directed by Gavin Toomey. In development since February 2025, with support from collaborators across performance and digital production.
Updated May 2026 - More information available on request.
AGENCY - Development Teaser - 2026 (1:20)
This extract (1:20) documents a series of R&D sessions exploring performance, digital doubles and real-time systems across multiple development days.
Actors in this preliminary project:
Vera Holte (also acting coach)
Øyvind Efraimsen
Valentina Alexeeva
Bao André Nguyen
Arild Søgnen
Frida Edrén
Julie Engesnes Bråthen
Supported by Viken Filmsenter (Fordypningsstipend 2025), Kulturrådet (Forprosjekt scenekunst), Statens diversestipend (2025–2026) & NOTAM.
WALKER - Immersive installation – Love & Mercy Festival, Blå, Oslo - April 12th 2025
WALKER is a live video and laser installation I presented at the inaugural LOVE & MERCY festival at Blå Oslo in collaboration with Mental Helse.
Founded by artist Torgeir Waldemar, the festival addresses themes explored in his music including loneliness, isolation, suicide and shame.
Responding to these themes, I created WALKER as a collaborative work with dance artists Ida Wigdel, Ludvig Daae, Rina Rosenqvist and Sulekha Ali Omar, with costume by USIKKERKUNSTJENTE and live music by Christian Wallumrød
WALKER - Love & Mercy Festival - Extract (0:52)
This extract (0:52) documents the live performance installation developed in collaboration with dance artists including Ida Wigdel and Ludvig Daae.
During development, I received Statens diversestipend 2025, which funded my ILDA (International Laser Display Association) Laser Safety Officer certification.
The Intergalactic Hanseatic League - Immersive / Co-operative - 01 – 31 October 2021
The Intergalactic Hanseatic League was a climate-fiction, time-travel adventure taking place across King’s Lynn town centre and online at the-ihl.com.
As director, co-writer and filmmaker of this project, I led a team of 24 artists and creatives, with creative contributions from over 800 local young people.
Across cinemas, public projections, interactive installations and online transmissions, audiences followed a narrative involving time travellers from 2225 attempting to prevent climate catastrophe.
Produced by Collusion following an 18-month development process. For full details and credits visit the Collusion Project Website.
Archived in the BFI National Archive’s Our Screen Heritage Collection in 2026.
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The IHL are a crew of three time travellers from 2225, the Captain (Kate Dickie), the Navigator and the Computer, attempting to contact the people of King’s Lynn in 2021.
In their future, “Earthport Lynn” is a thriving intergalactic spaceport. A pivotal event in 2021 known as the MINDSHIFT prevented climate catastrophe and transformed the future of the planet. But a glitch in spacetime now threatens that timeline. The IHL must fix it, with our heroes of the story, the people of King’s Lynn.
Mysterious TRANSMISSIONS from the crew of the IHL Discovery appeared across King’s Lynn’s cinemas, shops and social media. After dark, visitors encountered IHL portals, revealing further parts of the story projected onto five historic buildings.
The IHL - Documentary (14:00)
A 14-minute documentary exploring the development and delivery of The IHL, featuring interviews and behind-the-scenes footage with participating children, young people, schools, and the creative team.
Directed, filmed and edited by Gavin Toomey.
Drone and Eastgate footage by Matthew Usher Photography.
Music composed by CLIP.
Produced by Collusion Cambridge Ltd.
4 x IHL Transmission Films // Cinema / High St / Online
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On Greyfriars Tower, a 13th Century Franciscan monestary tower, they played the MESSAGE IN A SHUTTLE retro arcade game to send messages into ‘space’ written by the town’s primary school children, then interacted with the INTERGALACTIC SYNTHESIZER on the pergolas.
2 x Films of the IHL Portals in Action
The IHL Discovery’s NAVIGATOR called to young people in King’s Lynn to help us remember what the MINDSHIFT in 2021 King’s Lynn was that led to our healthy, thriving planet in 2225! We gave these AGENTS OF CHANGE a very important mission brief: the official IHL DATA LOG. Their responses to this brief became part of the AGENTS OF CHANGE projection on the Corn Exchange and in THE OLD ARGOS WINDOWS in the Vancouver Quarter
Throughout the project, the AGENTS OF CHANGE exhibition in the Old Argos windows shared the artwork of the 570 children who became Agents of Change for the project, with their designs addressing sustainable future living. You too can become an AGENT OF CHANGE – create your own designs for the future using our Resource kit and share you ideas with us on social media. And you can respond to the IHL challenge on Tiktok!
Local IHL 'Agents of Change' visiting an exhibition of their work
We also had help from 22 local partners including the town’s museums, cinemas, arts organisations and even a shopping centre!
Funding for the project came from the Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Arts Council England, the New Anglia LEP, Discover King’s Lynn,
Norfolk County Council, the Audrey Muriel Stratford Trust and PEACH West Norfolk.
See the full list of people and partners involved by viewing the Artists, Associates and Partners here http://www.collusion.org.uk/projects/the-ihl/
Voyager - Immersive / Site specific - 29 Sept - 1 Oct 2017
 Voyager - View of Pergola 2Photo by Matthew Usher |  Voyager - Pergola 2 with InteractionPhoto by Matthew Usher |
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 Voyager - Route "Under the Tower"Photo by Matthew Usher |  Voyager - Volumetric ProjectionPhoto by Matthew Usher |
 Voyager - Visitors "Under the Tower"Photo by Matthew Usher |  Voyager - Volumetric ProjectionPhoto by Matthew Usher |
 Voyager - Under the TowerPhoto by Matthew Usher |  Voyager - Archive detail projectedPhoto by Matthew Usher |
Voyager
Voyager was a spatial narrative exploring an AI becoming sentient, unfolding around and beneath Greyfriars Tower, a 13th-century Franciscan monastery in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
Gavin developed this concept over three months as a cross disciplinary collaboration with programmer/designer Pete Cleary and amateur journalist/historian Beatrice Bray.
Voyager was 1 of 4 projection projects selected for the Collusion King's Lynn R&D challenge develped over 4 months and
presented over the weekend of 29th Sept-1st Oct 2017, for one weekend only.
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The films/audio led the audience on a circular story path to the Tower, with the narrative climaxing "Under the Tower" and an immersive, volumetric light projection using large smoke machines creating a hologram effect. The love story was based on a 6 line, hexagonal poem I wrote, structured as palindrome verses.
I filmed & photographed the source material / footage locally in King's Lynn, around the Greyfriars site. The majority I filmed in the King's Lynn Town Hall Archives with the kind support of Luke Shackell, the Borough Archivist.
Collusion King's Lynn website: http://www.collusion.org.uk/kingslynn
Still Photographs by Matthew Usher http://www.matthewusherphotography.com
Archive photography, films, music, story and audio: Gavin Toomey
Programming, interaction and tower VFX: Pete Cleary
Historical and archival research: Beatrice Bray
Voice performances: Gavin Toomey and Jenny Dowdell
Presented as part of the Collusion King’s Lynn R&D programme, September–October 2017.
in_collusion is a not-for-profit programme supported by Arts Council England Ambition for Excellence fund, the Greater Cambridge, Greater Peterborough LEP, and tech partners, Arm and Cambridge Consultants. In addition, this project is supported by King's Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council.
Voyager - Project Documentation (2:13)
Directed, filmed and edited by Gavin Toomey.
Voyager - Pergola "Verses" - (Film 1 – 08:50 & Film 2 – 06:59)
These two films were installed across separate pergola structures, positioned along a walking route that led audiences through the site toward the final climax under Greyfriars Tower.
Together, they formed sequential “verses” in a spatial narrative, guiding visitors step by step along the path toward the tower and the culminating immersive projection experience beneath it.
Interactive elements designed and programmed by Pete Cleary were later overlaid in real time on Film 2 (not shown here), incorporating visitors’ depth-map silhouettes into the central hexagon, “Voyager’s eye.” This interaction fed back into the system, triggering animated responses projected onto the tower.
Shot, directed and audio/music by Gavin Toomey.
Voyager - Trailer (0:41)
Shot, Directed & Audio by Gavin Toomey
Trailer released as a teaser for the art projection installation
My Spectrum Heart - Immersive Installation - 11th Hour - October 2019
A projection artwork I made for the 11th Hour Festival, King's Lynn, Norfolk and
presented 'for one night only', 11th October 2019 in the cellar of Bank House, King's Staithe Square, King's Lynn.
My work was accompanied by Laica's (David Fleet) 6 speaker immersive audio installation 'Final Tide'.
Although we'd discussed presenting our work together, both of our projects were developed completely without knowledge of each other's piece or the cellar location, so the connection between our work - and to this space - was a serendipitous aspect of this process.
The work continues my experiments with minimal volumetric projection, symbols and redefining audience space through light and depth.
Using layered RGB colour channels offset in time and space, I explored how viewers might reconstruct shifting “out of phase” full-spectrum images from different positions within the installation.
This installation accompanied my other artwork, 'Ascension', projected, above ground, nearby this location (on the Custom House Building) on the same night of 11tHour.
I designed both to resonate upon the same themes.
My Spectrum Heart - Project Documentation (0:28)
Directed, filmed and edited by Gavin Toomey.
ASCENSION - Building Projection - 11th Hour - October 2019
A building projection artwork I made for the 11th Hour Festival, King's Lynn, Norfolk and
presented on the 11th October 2019 on the Custom House, Bridge St, King's Lynn.
My first experiment in public building projection. I filmed the 'ascension' footage travelling between Norfolk to Norway
and composed the music utilising samples of the local Norfolk coastline.
11thHour Festival website: https://11thour.co.uk/
Above: Ascension projected on Custom House, King's Lynn
Below: Ascension (the video projected onto building as above)
Video Experiments and Live Performance
Below are a series of films I've made, exploring the form, sometimes using vintage analogue video equipment to associate time and decay to the recordings.
Sentinal (2010) - Video (0:56)
Film and music by Gavin Toomey.
The work was created using a vintage tube camera, Betamax video recorder and analogue synthesiser, introducing an intentional degraded “time stamp” onto contemporary imagery.
This process was also being explored at the time as part of ongoing documentary work in development.
Inertia Loops vol. 1 (2016) - Video (2:38)
A short experimental film designed to loop seamlessly.
The work explores how internal monologue can become self-reinforcing, forming a cycle in which we can become our own worst enemy.
Performance: Esther Stanford
Film and sound design: Gavin Toomey
Apartment - Vessel (2003) - Performance Background Visuals - Extract (0:55)
A clip from a film created to accompany my live performances as Vessel circa 2003–04.
The sequence was created with the assistance of Inferno artist John Sharp.
Original track featured on Vessel - Dreaming in Pairs (2002).
CARRIER / SOURCE (1995) - Video (2:05)
Created on a Quantel "Henry" system in downtime as a runner at post production facility Framestore in late 1995.
Raw Dub from original VHS. by Gavin Toomey.