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物品时有一种创造性的使命感？这个以游客为中心的跨学科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：英国国家艺术、设计和表演博物馆维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆(V&A)；教育和社区沉浸式戏剧的先驱Punchdrine Enrichment；以及屡获殊荣的创意技术工作室The Worker。合作伙伴们打算共同构建一个展示档案材料的混合现实环境--这次是查尔斯·狄更斯的手写手稿--让15-18岁的年轻人在遇到历史物品时有一种创造性的使命感。手稿是我们拥有的最好的证据，证明了这位英国最重要和最著名的作家之一的创作过程，他的作品对今天的年轻人仍然有意义。狄更斯是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时期，他探索了今天仍然引起共鸣的主题。然而，在纸上书写和重写的行为正变得越来越罕见(甚至可能已经过时)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的迭代的--但这个过程需要对访问者开放。通过以手稿为中心的身临其境体验的原型，我们将探索数字技术如何增强身临其境的戏剧技术，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推动博物馆背景下的叙事？数字技术如何将博物馆物体置于身临其境体验的核心？博物馆的物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--这是庞奇醉酒丰富项目的重要组成部分。我们打算让这段经历为参与其中的孩子们创造一种超越博物馆的生活--它将对他们的创造性精神产生持久的吸引力。到目前为止，让孩子们谈论他们的经历，鼓励他们写故事，讨论他们，扩大他们的词汇量，一直是醉酒丰富工作的重要动机。这项研究将具有未来的创意和商业价值，因为它可能会为博物馆关于查尔斯·狄更斯的大型展览(2020)的发展提供信息，以及未来V&A博物馆19世纪收藏品的展示，以及为博物馆以外的实践提供信息，具有制度意义，因为它不仅允许我们询问最新技术，还将帮助我们与创意和技术行业的同行一起塑造和推动这一领域的创新。我们将评估通过该项目确定的方法将如何帮助在博物馆内外打造新的创造性实践，并将我们的发现整合到案例研究和初步工具包中。这项研究将通过提供案例研究和工具包来理解、试验和利用身临其境的技术来创造新的体验，从而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.