Riders Have Spoken: Designing and Evaluating an Archive for Replaying Interactive Performances

近年来，电子艺术领域内的一些组织已经致力于归档和保存的任务，通常是短暂的，电子艺术作品和数字表演。这些组织试图解决归档和保存电子媒体的一些问题，例如，经常涉及的研究和开发过程、用户交互、作品的分布式作者身份以及对硬件和软件组件的依赖，通过制定文档策略和元数据模型来帮助访问材料并增加它们的互操作性。此外，互动游戏和表演对捕获、存档和重放提出了特殊的挑战。这些挑战涉及到艺术作品的分布式特性、其开放式设计、涉及的多个参与者，以及由表演生成的数据（例如音频文件、视频文件、GPS数据）的异构性。试图捕捉这种表演的真实特征是极其困难的。《Rider Spoke》是由艺术家Blast Theory与诺丁汉大学混合现实实验室合作开发的混合现实互动表演，我们打算将其归档和重播，作为欧洲研究项目“普及游戏综合项目”（IPerg）的一部分。我们之所以选择这个特殊的作品，是因为它体现了交互性能文档所带来的挑战。Rider Spoke的表演在虚拟和现实空间中进行，并以戏剧性的复杂方式使用移动技术和位置媒体。自2007年推出以来，已有2000多名参与者在伦敦、雅典、布莱顿、布达佩斯；最近一次是在2009年的悉尼和阿德莱德。Rider Spoke专为骑自行车的人设计，结合了表演、游戏和互动技术的元素，邀请参与者在自行车上安装手持电脑，在城市的街道上骑行。与其他表演一样，《Rider Spoke》包含一套固定的参数和规则，游戏行动在其中发生；然而，与剧本表演不同的是，《Rider Spoke》是由100名或更多玩家之间的突发社交和人际互动构成的，就像玩家遵循预先设定的游戏规则一样。因此，在单个表演过程中，多个参与者将使用移动和基于位置的技术来调解他们的交互，并在此过程中生成需要在存档中捕获的不同类型的数据，以及与作品创作中使用的研究和开发过程相关的任何材料，以及与作品接收相关的任何材料，例如评论。在从一组异构的材料中开发一个档案时，至关重要的是要注意开发一组一致分配的描述符，即元数据方案，以便使档案的后续用户能够以有意义和有序的方式访问这些材料。研究的主要成果将是：(i)了解与互动表演（特别是Rider Spoke）的捕获、存档和重放相关的问题和问题（ii）存档和重放Rider Spoke的一组要求；由项目团队共同开发，以及档案管理员和人文学科研究人员的贡献。（iii）构建元数据模式和术语词汇表，以便对档案中的材料进行一致的描述；（iv）一个功能操作原型，使用户能够在档案的每一层内部和跨层导航；(v)从存档和重播《Rider Spoke》的过程中获得的结果和经验教训，以及这如何为电子艺术品和互动表演的捕获、存档和适当重播提供信息。

In recent years, a number of organizations within the field of electronic arts have devoted attention to the task of archiving and preserving, often transitory, electronic works of art and digital performances. These organizations have tried to address some of the problematic aspects of archiving and preserving electronic media, e.g. the research and development process that is often involved, user interactions, distributed authorship of the work, and dependency on hardware and software components, by developing documentation strategies and metadata models that aid in accessing the materials and increasing their interoperability. In addition interactive games and performances present particular challenges for capturing, archiving, and replaying. These challenges relate to the often distributed nature of the artwork, its open design, the multiple participants involved, and the heterogeneous nature of the data, e.g. audio files, video files, GPS data, generated by the performance. Trying to capture the live character of such performances is extremely difficult. Rider Spoke, the mixed reality interactive performance that we intend to archive and replay, was developed by the artists Blast Theory in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Laboratory at the University of Nottingham as part of the European research project Integrated Project of Pervasive Games (IPerg). We chose this particular work because it exemplifies the challenges posed by the documentation of interactive performance. A Rider Spoke performance takes place in both virtual and real spaces, and uses mobile technologies and locative media in dramaturgically complex ways. Since its launch in 2007 the work has so far been experienced by over 2000 participants in London, Athens, Brighton, Budapest; and most recently Sydney and Adelaide in 2009. Designed specifically for cyclists, Rider Spoke combines elements of performance, gameplay, and interactive technology by inviting participants to cycle through the streets of a city equipped with a handheld computer that is mounted to their bicycle. Like other performances, Rider Spoke contains a fixed set of parameters and rules within which game action takes place; unlike the scripted performance of a play, however, Rider Spoke is constituted as much by the emergent social and interpersonal interactions between 100 or more so players, as it is by players' following pre-specified game rules. Hence in the course of a single performance multiple players will use mobile and location-based technologies to mediate their interactions and in doing so generate different types of data that need to be captured in the archive, along with any materials relating to the research and development process that was used in the creation of the work, and any materials relating to the reception of the work e.g. reviews. In developing an archive from a heterogeneous set of materials, it is crucial that attention be given to developing a consistently assigned set of descriptors, i.e. a metadata scheme, in order to enable subsequent users of the archive to access the materials in a meaningful and orderly way. The main outcomes of the research will be: (i) an understanding of the problems and issues related to the capturing, archiving and replaying of interactive performances, specifically Rider Spoke (ii) a set of requirements for archiving and replaying Rider Spoke; collectively developed by the project team, along with contributions from archivists, and from humanities researchers. (iii) The construction of a metadata schema and vocabulary of terms for the consistent description of the materials in the archive (iv) a functional operational prototype that enables users to navigate within and cross each layer of the archive (v) outcomes and lessons learnt from the process of archiving and replaying Rider Spoke, and how this informs the capturing, archiving, and where appropriate replaying of electronic artworks and interactive performances in general.