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致力于存档和保存往往是暂时的电子艺术作品和数字表演的任务。这些组织试图解决电子媒体存档和保存方面的一些问题，例如经常涉及的研究和开发过程、用户互动、作品的分布式著作权以及对硬件和软件组件的依赖，方法是制定文件战略和元数据模型，帮助获取材料并提高其互操作性。此外，互动游戏和表演对捕获、存档和重播提出了特殊的挑战。这些挑战涉及艺术品的往往分散性、其开放式设计、涉及的多个参与者以及由表演产生的数据的异质性，例如音频文件、视频文件、GPS数据。试图捕捉到这类表演的现场特征是极其困难的。Rider Talk是我们打算存档和重播的混合现实互动表演，由艺术家爆炸理论与诺丁汉大学混合现实实验室合作开发，是欧洲研究项目普及游戏综合项目(IPerg)的一部分。我们之所以选择这项特别的工作，是因为它体现了记录互动表演所带来的挑战。骑手说话表演在虚拟和真实空间中进行，并以戏剧性的复杂方式使用移动技术和本地媒体。自2007年启动以来，到目前为止，在伦敦、雅典、布莱顿、布达佩斯，以及最近的2009年悉尼和阿德莱德，有2000多名参与者体验了这项工作。Rider Spoke是专门为骑自行车的人设计的，它结合了性能、游戏性和互动技术的元素，邀请参与者在配备了安装在自行车上的手持计算机的城市街道上骑自行车。像其他表演一样，骑士发言包含一组固定的参数和规则，游戏动作发生在这些参数和规则中；然而，与游戏的脚本表演不同，骑士发言是由100名或更多玩家之间的紧急社交和人际互动构成的，就像它是由玩家遵循预先指定的游戏规则构成的。因此，在一次表演过程中，多个参与者将使用移动和基于位置的技术来协调他们的互动，并在这样做的过程中生成需要在档案中捕获的不同类型的数据，以及与创作作品时使用的研究和开发过程有关的任何材料，以及与作品接收有关的任何材料，例如评论。在根据一套不同的材料编制档案时，至关重要的是要注意制定一套统一分配的描述符集，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，特别是骑手发言的捕获、存档和回放有关的问题和问题；(Ii)一套将骑手发言存档和回放的要求；这些要求由项目组与档案员和人文科学研究人员共同制定。(3)构建元数据模式和术语词汇，以便对档案中的材料进行一致的描述(4)使用户能够在档案的每一层内导航和跨越档案的功能操作原型；(5)从存档和重放骑手说话的过程中吸取的成果和经验教训，以及这如何为收集、存档和酌情重放一般的电子艺术品和互动表演提供信息。

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.