Media Cymru is set to launch its 2026 showcase year by placing Welsh creative innovation on one of the UK’s most powerful digital stages.
It will be premiering two new immersive works at Outernet London, London’s most visited cultural attraction and one of the most visited tourist destinations in the UK.
On Wednesday 4 March, during Wales Week London, the invite-only event will see ambitious work from two Welsh creative businesses showcased across Outernet’s vast, real-time media screens, which attract over six million visitors annually.
Media Cymru, part of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) flagship Strength in Places Fund, is a collaboration which is turning Cardiff and the surrounding capital region’s media sector into a global hub for media innovation with a focus on green and fair economic growth.
Media Cymru has built an ecosystem to boost innovation in a sector made up mainly of small independent companies with limited Research and Development (R&D) capacity – funding more than 150 innovation projects with Welsh creative businesses to supercharge media innovation.
Designed to push creative and technological boundaries, the new content comes from creative technology companies CreuTech and ATXR and amplifies both the identity and future direction of creative innovation in Wales.
North Wales-based CreuTech Ltd will premiere Artio, an interactive musical mythscape that reimagines Arthurian legend through an ecological and feminist lens. Using music, gesture recognition and immersive generative visuals, Artio invites audiences to co-create the story as it unfolds, a living myth powered by movement and sound.
Led by producer Ashley McAvoy and creative director Klaire Tanner, the R&D brings together an interdisciplinary collective of artists, technologists and musicians under CreuTech Ltd.
Contributors include acclaimed Welsh singers Alys Williams (The Voice) and Steve Balsamo (Jesus Christ Superstar, The Storys), playwright and screenwriter Tracy Harris (Mumfighter, Port Talbot Gotta Banksy), and Eisteddfod Crown-winning poet Owain Rhys. Together, the team explore how interactive music and generative media can deliver emotionally resonant, scalable storytelling within immersive public spaces.
As part of its commitment to creating new opportunities for Welsh creatives, Media Cymru launched a Challenge Fund partnership with Outernet London in 2025. The initiative funded two Welsh companies to develop bold, technically ambitious ideas specifically for Outernet’s state-of-the-art facility, which is one of the most advanced real-time media stages in the world.
The evening will also premier work from immersive studio ATXR with the debut of Awen: Unbound, an uplifting journey from containment to creative liberation. Fusing light, sound and nature, the immersive experience is powered by real Welsh environmental data and plant-generated music, inviting visitors to co-create a vibrant, living landscape. Surrounded by the
Outernet’s screens Media Cymru’s guests are set to discover how nature inspires innovation, nurtures hope and reconnects audiences to a shared creative future.
Artio and Awen: Unbound will be available to view in the Outernet from March 2026.
Alongside the immersive premieres, Media Cymru will also share details of its 2026 programme, including PLAYBACK, a three-day festival of innovation taking place in Cardiff this September. The festival will showcase Media Cymru-funded projects and the wider innovation ecosystem built with media businesses across the Cardiff Capital Region.
