Invisible Worlds: Place-Making, Augmented Reality, and Alderley Edge

《看不见的世界》利用增强现实（AR）提供的机会，汇集了数字和创造性的回应，探索当代和历史的场所制作策略。这是一项与英国国家信托基金会的学术合作，它将奥尔德利边缘（Alderley Edge）作为研究重点，这是柴郡东北部的一个户外（非建筑）遗产遗址，位于青铜和罗马时代的矿山网络之上。奥尔德利边缘有着悠久而丰富的传奇历史，然而，今天大多数游客都看不到这段历史。该项目由伯明翰大学英国文学系、伦敦历史研究所和林肯大学媒体研究系的跨学科研究人员领导；以及与视觉媒体，音景和讲故事的创意从业者。它是在2018年5月至2019年4月与国民信托组织举行的一系列范围界定会议上制定的，直接应对信托组织确定的紧迫挑战。它还建立在与边缘及其传奇的主要利益相关者建立的关系之上，包括作家艾伦·加纳、柴郡教育和遗产慈善机构、布莱肯信托基金（由艾伦和格里塞尔达·加纳创立）和德比郡探洞俱乐部，后者根据国民信托基金的许可管理奥尔德利边缘的矿山。《看不见的世界》是一个数字人文项目，研究当代地方体验与中世纪传奇叙事之间的关系，为中世纪研究、数字人文和遗产开辟了新的道路。它为研究跨历史的场所制造提供了一种新的模式，探讨了场所的悠久历史与当代生活空间经验的相互作用方式。《看不见的世界》以奥德利边缘的传说为焦点：一个沉睡英雄的地下房间，在遗址下面，他们将在国家危机的时候醒来。在长期流传的地区流传中，现代传说与中世纪的来源有密切关系，这些来源影响了后来与该遗址相关的中世纪实践，包括艾伦·加纳（Alan Garner）小说中的处理方法。加纳为该项目的发展提供了建议，并且是该项目的顾问委员会的重要成员。该项目将使用沉浸式3D软件Unity 3D（通过智能手机或平板电脑访问），通过AR资源访问Edge的地下传说。从地面上看，该资源将委托的艺术反应本地化，以3D形式呈现场地下方的矿山，以反映悠久的历史和当代版本的传说。它也可以通过位于伯明翰大学的项目网站远程访问。边缘作为一个有生命的地方的体验，以及一个具有历史重要性的地点，是《看不见的世界》的基础。一项公众调查，邀请对Edge传奇的新回应，将整合到AR资源和网站中。这在项目中被定位为传奇场所制作历史的最新篇章，并形成了新的边缘公共历史的基础，由资源的用户而不是为他们书写。“看不见的世界”已经发展成为一个案例研究，具有跨遗产遗址和组织扩展的潜力。它利用AR的能力来表现和分析想象中的世界，叠加在地理真实之上，作为传达非建筑遗产或具有无形、传奇或艰难历史的遗址的新动态历史的重要组成部分。在Alderley Edge，该项目将以其传奇地位和文化意义为中心，促进一种新型的游客体验和参与。

Invisible Worlds brings together digital and creative responses to explore contemporary and historical place-making strategies, drawing on the opportunities offered by Augmented Reality (AR). An academic collaboration with the National Trust, it takes as its focus Alderley Edge, an outdoor (non-built) heritage site in North-East Cheshire, above a network of Bronze and Roman Age mines. Alderley Edge has a long and rich legendary history, which is, however, largely invisible to the majority of visitors to the site today. The project is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, the Institute of Historical Research, London, and the Department of Media Studies at the University of Lincoln; as well as creative practitioners working with visual media, soundscapes and storytelling. It has been developed through a series of scoping meetings from May 2018 to April 2019 with the National Trust, in direct response to urgent challenges identified by the Trust. It also builds on established relationships with key stakeholders in the Edge and its legend, including the author Alan Garner, the Cheshire educational and heritage charity, the Blacken Trust (founded by Alan and Griselda Garner), and Derbyshire Caving Club, who manage the mines at Alderley Edge under license from the National Trust. A digital humanities project engaged with the relationship between contemporary experiences of place and medieval legendary narratives, Invisible Worlds charts a new course in Medieval Studies, the Digital Humanities, and Heritage. It offers a new model for the study of trans-historical place-making, approaching the ways in which long histories of place interact with contemporary experiences of lived space. Invisible Worlds takes as its focus the legend of Alderley Edge: a subterranean chamber of sleeping heroes, beneath the site, who will awaken at a time of national crisis. In long-lived regional circulation, the modern legend has affinities to medieval sources which have informed later medievalist practices associated with the site, including its treatment in the novels of Alan Garner. Garner has advised on the development of the project, and is a key member of the project's advisory board.The project will make the subterranean legend of the Edge accessible through an AR resource, using immersive 3D software, Unity 3D (accessed via smart phone or tablet). The resource localises commissioned artistic responses to long historical and contemporary versions of the legend in 3D representations of the mines beneath the site, viewed from above ground. It will also be accessible remotely, through the project website, hosted at the University of Birmingham. The experience of the Edge as lived place, as much as a site of historical importance, is fundamental to Invisible Worlds. A public survey, inviting new responses to the legend of the Edge, will be integrated within the AR resource and website. This is positioned within the project as the latest chapter in the long history of legendary place-making, and forms the grounds of a new public history of the Edge, written by users of the resource rather than for them. Invisible Worlds has been developed as a case study, with extensible potential across heritage sites and organisations. It engages with the capacity of AR for the representation and analysis of imagined worlds, overlaid upon the geographical real, as a vital component in communicating new dynamic histories of non-built heritage, or sites with invisible, legendary or difficult histories. At Alderley Edge, the project will facilitate a new type of visitor experience and engagement, centring its legendary position and its cultural significance.