Notes on the creation of an archive for Rider Spoke By G. Giannachi

Our task is the construction of a research archive that could be shared by multiple researchers from different backgrounds.

Blast Theory’s Rider Spoke (2007) is a mobile interactive performance work for cyclists. Participants explore a city on cycles and engage in a game of hide and seek in which they record and hide personal stories at chosen locations and then find and listen to others’ stories in turn. Rider Spoke has so far been performed three times – at the Barbican in London in 2007 and subsequently in Athens and Brighton in 2008. More than 700 participants have taken part in these performances and all of their audio files and associated interactions have been captured. There is also a set of video recordings of participants taking part and an initial project documentary video.

As the most likely users of an archive of a Blast Theory work are festival organisers and museum curators, I researched the kind of data required by archivists at ZKM, Ars Electronica, and V2. This led me to the following list of metadata for a possible REPLAY archive design to support research for Rider Spoke.


TITLE

PRACTITIONER
bio
PARTNER
Bio

VENUE
INSTALLATION
START DATE-END DATE
OPERATORS
ORCHESTRATORS
ADDITIONAL DATES
INSTALLATION
START DATE-END DATE
OPERATORS
ORCHESTRATORS

DESCRIPTION
TYPE (e.g., interactive, hybrid)

ARTIST VIDEO
RELEVANT PROGRAMMES (hardware, software, applications, operating system)
EXAMPLES OF USER INTERACTION (self-documentations generated by users and documentations generated by ethnographers, performance studies academics and professional photographers/filmmakers/videomakers)
EXAMPLES OF LOGS
EXAMPLES OF MAPS
VIDEO RECORDINGS
AUDIO RECORDINGS

(Physiological Data)

DIAGRAMS
TRANSCRIPTS
(googlemaps)
GPS data
R&D PROCESS
IMPLEMENTATION FINDINGS

EVALUATION
PRINCIPAL REVIEWS
RELEVANT ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
INTERVIEWS

DOCUMENTS
Storyboards
Materials given to players
Materials given to operators
BLAST THEORY IMAGES
USER GENERATED REVIEWS/BLOGS/IMAGES/VIDEOS

FUNDERER
SPONSORS

KEYWORDS
USER GENERATED KEYWORDS
COPYRIGHT
INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESTAGING
Search facilities
Tags linking all the above



I showed these data to the Creator team, Peter Tolmie (MRL ethnographer) and Peter Hulton (Exeter Digital Archives) and had the following feedback.

Peter Tolmie felt that although the list seemed quite exhaustive, it is only by researching the work that we will know what should ultimately go into such as archive.

Peter Hulton felt the piece was a very good model to research new archiving techniques as it is in many ways un-archivable. His specific feedback was as follows:

Archives should not pretend neutrality but declare themselves. They should state:
Point of view, i.e., they should incorporate the theory or conceptual framework that has generated them
As they can never match an original event, they should be structured as satellites to it. Each satellite should determine its own approach and declare it.
Satellites should be distinct from one another
Archives should disclose tools, methodologies and intent of documentation. For example a still photo is its own phenomenon and can never equal the original event.
Archives should be living archives and incorporate the past into the present into the future.
Viewers of archives are echoes of the original event and should be able to roam freely within the documentation and create their own trajectories of interpretation.

At the top of this post is a model of the satellite archival system we discussed.


More specifically Peter Hulton suggested that we looked at 6 billion others (http://www.6billionothers.org/index_en.php) as a model to document participants’ statements about their experience after the event by means of a simple 10 minute interview, framing head only, talking straight to camera. These could then be juxtaposed against ethnographies, documentations and other records.

These could be setup in a more immersive environment generating an installation. Navigating through the display may allow viewers to see an enlarged moving image of a given participant on a second wall. Participants could then listen to that participant’s answers while watching their journey replayed in the installation. New questions could be devised for the archive user asking them, for instance, whether they believed the participant’s answers were truthful; how they felt about it or why they thought a participant may have chosen a particular site to make a confession. Participants may also be asked to rate the effectiveness of the replayed journey and to predict the behaviour of participants by stating what they think someone might for instance answer to the question on a party that went a bit mad. Finally participants might be asked to make their own confessions in the aftermath of listening to the ‘original’ ones.

In terms of the overall archive structure, given the data available and the museum/festival requirements for metadata, a possible initial design for a Rider Spoke research archive may be as follows (images are just indicative):

When I showed the list of metadata to Matt Adams (Blast Theory) he noted:

It’s important that archives declare their own rationale also in terms of costs and technologies, i.e. archives should indicate their own constraints
It would be interesting to include a series of drawings of various interface possibilities; whiteboard photos; documents pertaining to the structure of the work; drafts of questions that show refinement (particularly showing how poetic sentences ere refined in terms of usability)

This would suggest a reconfiguration of the metadata as indicated beneath:

Development
R&D PROCESS
RELEVANT PROGRAMMES (hardware, software, applications, operating system)
DOCUMENTS
Drawings
Whiteboard photos
Storyboards
Questions drafts
DIAGRAMS
IMPLEMENTATION
GPS data
FINDINGS

Interface/HCI
EXAMPLES OF USER INTERACTION
VIDEO RECORDINGS
AUDIO RECORDINGS
(Physiological Data)
EXAMPLES OF LOGS
TRANSCRIPTS
EXAMPLES OF MAPS
Venue
VENUE
INSTALLATION
START DATE-END DATE
OPERATORS
ORCHESTRATORS
ADDITIONAL DATES
INSTALLATION
START DATE-END DATE
OPERATORS
ORCHESTRATORS
Users/blogs
USER GENERATED REVIEWS/BLOGS/IMAGES/
VIDEOS
USER GENERATED KEYWORDS
(googlemaps)

Rider Spoke details
TITLE
PRACTITIONER (bio)
PARTNER (Bio)
DESCRIPTION
TYPE (e.g., interactive, hybrid)
FUNDERER
SPONSORS
KEYWORDS
COPYRIGHT
INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESTAGING
META-ARCHIVE DECLARATIONS
Orchestration
Materials given to players
Materials given to operators
PHOTOS
Replay and user generated archives
CREATIVE ARCHIVES
For example SL/CAVE archive etc
TRACKING of USE

Ethnography/Documentation
EVALUATION
PRINCIPAL REVIEWS
RELEVANT ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
INTERVIEWS
Artist video
BLAST THEORY VIDEO and IMAGES


Search facilities and tags linking all the above could be included. Windows could be opened simultaneously allowing users to engage with more than one field simultaneously. For example a user might be able to look at the Blast Theory video while also reading an IPerG report. Or, they might be able to scroll down maps while reading a review and listening to some audio recordings.

It is my recommendation that within the satellite structure proposed by Peter Hulton the archive designers identify a series of paths or individual journeys. Subsequent users may identify other paths.

As a set of initial paths that might be interesting to explore could include:

Relationship between question design and participant behaviour
Licence to confess/to cycle – sense of being in a ‘film’, ‘hyperaware’ (see questionnaires) or, in Matt Adam’s words, in a ‘mini pilgrimage’ (frame analysis development)
Rating system
Confessions are like mementos (see Mauss), a ‘gift’ (poison) so listening to logs is ‘contaminating’ = we become witnesses/bearers to the confession that was made (this could be explored through replay)
Palimpsest quality of piece print/tattoo mark/choice of location site; investigation of the semiotics of both actual and digital locations. The only evidence of the presence of others here is in space: identities come to coincide with spaces, and spaces with their WIFI fingerprints. Matt Adams commented on the interesting possibilities emerging from overlaying Cartesian and WIFI landscapes, the former being ‘fixed’, the latter being ‘unstable’. See also piece dynamics orientation/vs/disorientation
Matt Adams suggested an analysis of how participants behaved in the hour – how they fluctuated in and out of answering vs listening – how they relied on clues left by others
Matt Adams suggested a taxonomy of promises – an analysis of the structural order of the sentences in which a promise was made
Relationship between documentation & ethnography and event of art
Evidence of social expansion (including being ‘hyperaware’)

Jonathan Foster also noted that we should be assigning an index term to
each audio file (derived from a simple controlled vocabulary based on the
question set).

Teaching Fraser Fonda to Ride a Bike

Having problems with the code to animate my Second Life avatar to ride its bike any thoughts?

This is the code from SL

default
{
state_entry()
{
llSetSitText("Ride");
llSitTarget(<0.6,>, ZERO_ROTATION);
llSetCameraEyeOffset(<-5.0, 0.0, 2.0>);
llSetCameraAtOffset(<3.0,>);
llSetVehicleFlags(-1);
llSetVehicleType(VEHICLE_TYPE_CAR);
llSetVehicleFlags(VEHICLE_FLAG_NO_FLY_UP VEHICLE_FLAG_LIMIT_ROLL_ONLY);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_ANGULAR_DEFLECTION_EFFICIENCY, 0.2);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_LINEAR_DEFLECTION_EFFICIENCY, 0.80);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_ANGULAR_DEFLECTION_TIMESCALE, 0.10);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_LINEAR_DEFLECTION_TIMESCALE, 0.10);

llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_LINEAR_MOTOR_TIMESCALE, 1.0);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_LINEAR_MOTOR_DECAY_TIMESCALE, 0.2);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_ANGULAR_MOTOR_TIMESCALE, 0.1);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_ANGULAR_MOTOR_DECAY_TIMESCALE, 0.5);


llSetVehicleVectorParam(VEHICLE_LINEAR_FRICTION_TIMESCALE, <1000.0,>);
llSetVehicleVectorParam(VEHICLE_ANGULAR_FRICTION_TIMESCALE, <10.0,>);


llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_VERTICAL_ATTRACTION_EFFICIENCY, 0.50);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_VERTICAL_ATTRACTION_TIMESCALE, 0.50);

llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_BANKING_EFFICIENCY, 0.99);
llSetVehicleFloatParam(VEHICLE_BANKING_TIMESCALE, 0.01);
}

changed(integer change)
{
if (change & CHANGED_LINK)
{
key agent = llAvatarOnSitTarget();
if (agent)
{
if (agent != llGetOwner())
{
llSay(0, "You aren't the owner");
llUnSit(agent);
llPushObject(agent, <0,0,100>, ZERO_VECTOR, FALSE);
}
else
{
llSetStatus(STATUS_PHYSICS, TRUE);
llRequestPermissions(agent, PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION PERMISSION_TAKE_CONTROLS);
}
}
else
{
llSetStatus(STATUS_PHYSICS, FALSE);
llReleaseControls();
llStopAnimation("motorcycle_sit");
}
}

}

run_time_permissions(integer perm)
{
if (perm)
{
llStartAnimation("motorcycle_sit");
llTakeControls(CONTROL_FWD CONTROL_BACK CONTROL_RIGHT CONTROL_LEFT CONTROL_ROT_RIGHT CONTROL_ROT_LEFT, TRUE, FALSE);
}
}
control(key id, integer level, integer edge)
{ vector angular_motor;

More thoughts and models

Been trying to make models similar to the Second Life underpass idea using 3Dstudio exporting to VRML, hopefully they will have sound attached.
Keep thinking about question of what or who is the replay for and where my interest sit. I'm interested in the archive as the base for replay. Thinking about Borges story of the Library of Babel, http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html where all books that could be written exist, even a book that would tell you when you are going to die. Thought about how the questions asked led to intimate stories. So started to build a version of the library of babel. Would like to embed sound files into the map. Participate needs to leave a print or mark to trigger sound.

Created some 3d text thinking about sounds in the space. Also asked Adrian if the participant could write a message on the walls while in the cave.....
Borges describes the rooms in the library as hexagonal
Wanted to have some kind of channels shoots you could fall fly cycle through thinking of Alice in Wonderland. Alter perspective. Wanted sound of text which participant falls through.

Based on the bike I made in Second Life heres one made in 3d studio to be exported into vrml.

The texture below is made from a bike tyre track cast in PVA translucent and skin like.

Saw this today, could imagine this for the replay

Lines of data, as architecture?

Sydney Nolan drawing.....thinking about different ways of building a data structure. Lines to follow story line, routes, diagrams, information.

Thought about wheel as maze..... Marks from the bike tracks.
Thought about travelling through the data as a tightrope walk, to escape the use of the bicycle.

Thought of bike wheel as wheel of fortune/roulette wheel. Wondered whether a Wii could be hooked up to a bike found this http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=11583

Thinking about the fingerprinting that marked the space out used maps from google earth.

Thumb prints bit like gradient lines.

Sketches from Sketchbook

Tried to think about what the shap the replay could be wanted to think about a link back to the archive. Thought about Tags from the participants recordings, creating the shape of the replay. Thought about taking a route from a map thinking about recordings at the junctions and how tagged words in the recordings could link them.


Kept thinking about this video and the linking of tagged photos.

22nd July 2008 Sykpe conversation notes with Blast Theory, Matt and Julianne in Brighton, Adrian in Reading and Kate in London

We started the conversation with Adrian describing the equipment available at Reading talking about the Power wall and the CAVE at that point my Skype connection broke so I missed a bit.

Matt The moment you went was when I asked you what your interests are and then you went silent and I was beginning to think that maybe I had upset you!

Kate Hah Hah ….yeah..ok I got involved working with Adrian through using VRML and made some work using the CAVE and 3d modelling working with a composer and a dancer and also through a public art project where he built some 3d text for me for a memorial wall for the Bartonwall project. I also have been doing quite a lot of work in Second Life and been talking with Adrain about trying to integrate the two sides of my interests in virtual worlds the immersive CAVE and the immersion of a online virtual world. So when we read the proposal Steve had written I could see links between the proposal ideas and my own interests. I got all excited about Jeffery Shaws work Legible City, I thought that would be an interesting interface between the body and the virtual world for a replay of two other artists work, so that was some of the stuff that got me excited about working on the project.

Matt Yeah Jeffery Shaws work was something we discussed in the making of Rider Spoke we were very careful not to stray into the same terrain because the work is so well known and that work it’s a wonderful piece we love it, it’s the obvious reference. From our point of view Yes obviously were are very thrilled and excited that people are interested in Rider Spoke and that there are things there of value and interest.. er.. Kate something that I’m sure your aware of is that it is very important for us that our work it is public facing and that engages directly with the general audience we see the creator project providing an obstacle, an opportunity to do something which is more private and therefore providing more room for experimentation, more playful, engaging with the research goal and as such we don’t have very strong feelings about what might be done, the one essential thing for us is that it is not public facing it would all be private for research purposes, then obviously if later down the track if there’s something that we are all excited about or we think should be shown publicly then we would have that discussion a that stage.

Kate Yes that was one of the questions that keep coming up, the idea of it being replayed.
Who were we replaying it for, was it for the people who had already done it or is it for someone who’d never been there?

Matt Exactly and obviously when we come to engage with the project more directly than we are able to at the moment that would be exactly the kind of question that we would want to examine. Our aspiration is that we will make some kind of interactive archival project within the Creator project that would have ultimately have some kind of public showing but that is quite along way down the track and what we are aware of is this is a research project with research goals. Our first priority is to ensure that we fitting in nicely with what the research agenda is and various researchers who are engaged with the research project and what they are hoping to achieve. But you know Kate, you in particular, you are an artist, and I presume your work is made for the general public, how do you feel about engaging on this project under the understanding that it is not going to be public facing?

Kate I don’t think its been an issue for me, I got into it in terms of wanting to find out more about developing a link between different virtual worlds, but also I’m interested in the idea of collaboration as well. So I didn’t see it as a way to get publicity, that’s not how I saw it, so for me it’s not a problem. I have to admit when I read the project I thought, oh god that’s a way I’ve never worked before, working on another artists work, on something that’s so established, especially when we were in the workshop at MRL it felt a bit awkward say things and wondering how it would fit in.

Matt I guess were all in the same boat in that respect aren’t we? It’s a fairly unusual, if not an unprecedented set of collaborators, the breadth of disciplines and institutions that all come together to face particular kinds of research questions, the flip side is that by keeping it private it gives us a lot more freedom for us to follow our own interests and passions

Kate And see what happens …

Matt Exactly we will all learn as we go won’t we……

Kate I’m working in some other collaborative groups I’m interested in the dynamics of working within them I guess that’s one of the main reasons I enjoy it, I don’t feel that it has to serve my ‘art ego’……

Matt Yeah

Kate I’m more curious to explore how to work with all these different strands.

Matt Right

Adrian I think that’s something that applies to the whole creative field certainly its something that the Troubadour Projects have picked up on wanting to measure how we interact with each other.

Julianne My guess is that the first phase is very much about the research, developing the partnerships and how the partners might work together, I see this project very much investigation some of those research questions that are about replaying, remixing and how do you recreate the experience.

Kate One of the things I’m thinking about having read and now heard the questions was what would happen if you were in a virtual environment and asked similar or the same questions would you get the same about of intimacy, because they are really particular the way that they are said you are kind of led to certain sorts of responses.
First I only read the answers when up in Nottingham it seemed strange the things that people told you, how intimate it was, but when I heard the questions I thought oh maybe I would have told you intimate things too…how would that be in a virtual world.

Matt Yes a lot of the focus of Rider Spoke and our work generally is how you establish a context in which people will participate in a meaningful way and I think the idea of being alone on a bicycle at night, almost certainly off the beaten track, quite possibly slightly lost, those things are all critical in terms of what we present and say and I think it would be very interesting to look at that in virtual space. I’m sure it would be very different. Peoples own safety is a very major issue, how to design spaces and peoples own awareness of their safety or lack of it, will determine what they are saying and how they behave.

Julianne Ok, do you think that’s ok, I think Matts nodding his head, do you have any more questions?

Kate Erm… well…. I suppose…as long as its kept within the research group….we can follow where we think we should go……is that right?

Matt Yes I think that’s what I would suggest……yes obviously we are very happy to continue the discussion, but on the other hand I’m very mindful of not wanting to kind of limit you, you both have your own practice, you come from different fields and you’ve both got your own trajectories and styles of working, it feels to me that would provide you the scope to be able to be very free about it. Clearly if you have questions or things you want to discuss I’d be very happy to do that.

Kate Brilliant ok

Matt And hopefully well get to meet each other

Kate Yes I wondered if it maybe part of the research project should be that I never get to meet you at all!

Matt I’m not going to make the next workshop either it’s two days before the start of the Royal Opera House project

Kate Oh yes I heard

Matt So you may joke about it now!

Kate Hah Hah I know….. but it may be the reality!