New artwork reveals there's more to soil than meets the eye

The earth beneath our feet is a complex ecosystem of microscopic life. However, this fragile world is all too easily upset. A new interactive artwork reveals a rarely-seen landscape of fungi, bacteria and other microscopic organisms, and shows how caring for our soil can play a role in capturing carbon and helping the fight against climate change.

During production, artist Henry Driver was keen to go the extra mile to make the artwork accessible to as many people as possible, and the resulting project is available in different formats. While the full version is designed to push the visual capabilities of high end PCs, there is also a 360-degree video version which will run on nearly any phone, tablet or laptop.

For Driver, the New Creatives collaboration has reinforced the importance of making his work accessible. "This project has firmly cemented online free interactive artwork as a cornerstone of my practice. I believe that art needs to be available and accessible for as many people as possible. This was one of my mantras for the project, and is something I want to continue with."

Henry Driver is a young artist based in Suffolk. He has shown work across the world in Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, South Korea, India, and Taiwan. While in the UK, Driver has shown at Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Barbican and The Whitechapel Gallery. Driver created all of the art, design, and sound for Secrets of Soil as well as the majority of the coding.

Secrets of Soil features voiceover by Lynsey Murrell. Script assistance was given by Sam Snape.

The project was produced by arts organisation Collusion and commissioned by Screen South and BBC Arts. The executive producers were Jo Nolan and Peter Richardson.

Henry would like to thank the John Innes Centre researchers and support staff for discussing and sharing their research and imagery, as well as providing advice on the script.