Immersive Dickens: Creating a Prototype, Mixed-Reality Experience for 15-18 year-olds

我们如何将数字技术、表演和策展实践结合在一起，让年轻人在遇到历史文物时产生一种创造性的能动性？这个跨学科的、以游客为中心的项目汇集了三个主要合作伙伴的策展、戏剧、设计和技术专长：维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆（V&A），英国国家艺术、设计和表演博物馆；Punchdrunk Enrichment，教育和社区沉浸式戏剧的先驱；以及屡获殊荣的创意技术工作室The Workers。合作伙伴打算一起为档案材料的展示创造一个混合现实环境的原型——在这个案例中是查尔斯·狄更斯的手写手稿——这将给15-18岁的年轻人在遇到历史物品时一种创造性的代理感。这些手稿是我们所拥有的英国最重要和最著名的作家之一的创作过程的最好证据，他的作品对今天的年轻人仍然具有重要意义。狄更斯是一个城市物质文化和生活的观察者，在一个快速的技术创新和普遍的金融不安全的时期，一个作家探索的主题仍然在今天引起共鸣。然而，在纸上书写和重新起草的行为正变得越来越罕见（甚至可能过时）的创造性实践。这些手稿可能会向我们展示作者是如何修改和富有想象力地迭代的——但这个过程需要向游客解锁。通过以手稿为中心的沉浸式体验原型，我们将探索数字技术如何增强沉浸式戏剧技术，以创造一个不一定依赖表演者的表演环境。我们将回答以下问题：在数字和物理空间中，人与物体之间的互动如何驱动博物馆背景下的叙事？数字技术如何将博物馆藏品置于沉浸式体验的核心？博物馆的展品如何成为表演的一部分？通过发现和理解狄更斯的创作过程，我们的目标是激发自我表达——这是Punchdrunk Enrichment项目的重要组成部分。我们打算让这个经历对参与其中的孩子们有一个超越博物馆的生活-它将对他们的创造精神产生持久的吸引力。让孩子们谈论他们的经历，鼓励他们写故事，讨论故事并扩大他们的词汇量是Punchdrunk Enrichment迄今为止工作的重要动机。这项研究将具有未来的创意和商业价值，可能为博物馆（2020年）查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens）大型展览的发展提供信息，并为V&A博物馆19世纪藏品的未来展示提供信息，同时为博物馆本身之外的实践提供信息，并且具有机构意义，因为它不仅可以让我们询问最新的技术，同时也要与我们在创意和技术行业的同行一起，帮助塑造和推动这一领域的创新。我们将评估通过项目确定的方法将如何帮助在博物馆内外形成新的创造性实践，并将我们的发现整合到案例研究和初步工具包中。该研究将通过提供案例研究和工具包来理解、试验和利用沉浸式技术来创造新的体验，从而有助于加深创意产业和研究部门之间的联系。它将有助于展示下一代数字内容和服务如何在英国创意经济中被概念化、生产和利用。

How can we bring digital technology, performance and curatorial practice together to give young people a sense of creative agency when encountering a historical object?This interdisciplinary, visitor-focused project draws together the curatorial, theatrical, design and technological expertise of three leading partners: the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the UK's national museum of art, design and performance; Punchdrunk Enrichment, pioneers of educational and community-based immersive theatre; and award-winning creative technology studio, The Workers. Together, the partners intend to prototype a mixed reality environment for the display of archive material - in this case the handwritten manuscripts of Charles Dickens - that will give young people aged 15-18 a sense of creative agency when encountering an historical object.The manuscripts are the best evidence we have of the creative process of one of the UK's most important and renowned authors, whose work has continuing relevance for young people today. Dickens was an observer of urban material culture and life in a period of rapid technological innovation and widespread financial insecurity, a writer who explored themes that still resonate today. However, the act of writing and redrafting on paper is becoming an increasingly rare (perhaps even obsolete) creative practice. The manuscripts might show us how an author revises and imaginatively iterates - but that process needs to be unlocked for visitors. By prototyping an immersive experience, centred on the manuscript, we will explore how digital technologies can augment immersive theatre techniques to create a performative environment, one that does not necessarily rely on performers. We will answer the following questions:How can the interactions between people and objects within a digital and a physical space drive a narrative in a museum context?How can digital technologies put the museum object at the heart of an immersive experience? How can the museum object become part of a performance?Through discovering and understanding Dickens's creative process, we aim to inspire self-expression - an important strand of Punchdrunk Enrichment's projects. We intend for this experience to have a life beyond museum for the children involved - that it will make a lasting appeal to their creative spirit. Getting children to talk about their experiences, encouraging them to write stories, discuss them and expand their vocabulary have been important motivations in Punchdrunk Enrichment's work to date.This research will be of future creative and commercial value by potentially informing the development of a major exhibition on Charles Dickens at the Museum (2020) and the future display of the V&A's nineteenth-century collections, as well as inform practice beyond the museum itself, and is of institutional significance because it will allow us to not only interrogate the latest technologies, but also to help shape and drive innovation in this area with our peers in the creative and technological industries. We will gauge how methodologies identified through the project will help forge new creative practice, within the museum and beyond, and consolidate our findings in a case study and preliminary toolkit. The research will help deepen links between creative industries and research sectors by presenting a case study and toolkit to understand, experiment with and exploit immersive technologies to create new experiences. It will help show how the next generation of digital content and services can be conceptualised, produced and exploited within the UK creative economy.