Riders Have Spoken: an artist-led practical exploration of recording and replaying live, distributed and interactive experiences
An Initial Report on the Practice-Based Exploration of Rider Spoke.
Edited by Alan Chamberlain
With input from Alan Chamberlain and Duncan Rowland (Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham); Gabriella Giannachi (University of Exeter); Julianne Pierce (Blast Theory); Jonathan Foster (University of Sheffield); Adrian Haffegee and Kate Allen (University of Reading).
Introduction
This report, covers the initial findings of the Riders Have Spoken research project, part of the Creator Project cluster, funded by EPSRC* as part of the "Connecting Communities for the Digital Economy" initiative. The cluster brings together practitioners from the creative industries with researchers from varied traditions that span ICT, the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and business studies.
The cluster is comprised of several practical projects and troubadour studies. Blast Theory is involved in the "Riders Have Spoken" project, which aims to explore the challenges involved in recording and replaying distributed interactive experiences so as to enable new creative practices and also better support interdisciplinary research.
Using Blast Theory's recent work "Rider Spoke", the project partners are utlising recordings from the work to investigate a range of methods for archiving and playback of the recorded materials.
The "Riders Have Spoken" team are Steve Benford, Alan Chamberlain and Duncan Rowland (Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham); Gabriella Giannachi (University of Exeter); Matt Adams and Julianne Pierce (Blast Theory); Jonathan Foster (University of Sheffield); Adrian Haffegee and Kate Allen (University of Reading); Drew Hemment (Lancaster University).
The overall objectives of the Creator cluster are to:
- define a new long-term research agenda for the creative industries to underpin future collaborations between the ICT research-base and creative practitioners.
- initiate new inter-disciplinary collaborations among researchers across ICT, the arts and humanities, and the social sciences, including business studies.
- propose and demonstrate new ways of engaging creative end-users, leading to new models of research that can successfully combine focused "practice-led" creative activity with the need to address long-term research goals.
- explore new forms of knowledge transfer and innovative business.
The Creation of an Archive for Rider Spoke - The Performance Studies Perspective. Exeter University
Our task was the construction of a research archive of Rider Spoke 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 the stories of others in turn. Rider Spoke has so far been performed four times – at the Barbican in London in 2007 and subsequently in Athens, Brighton and Budapest 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 this artwork are academics in the arts and humanities, artists, students, festival organisers and museum curators, research was started by examining the data required by archivists at well-known interactive arts museums such as ZKM, Ars Electronica, and V2. This led to the following list of metadata:
Figure 1. Meta Data list – arising from the research carried out by Gabriella
TITLE
PRACTITIONER NAME (and bio) and PARTNERS NAMES (and bios)
VENUE(S) (installation; start and end dates; operators; orchestrators)
DESCRIPTION
TYPE (e.g., interactive, hybrid) and KEYWORDS (including user-generated keywords)
RELEVANT PROGRAMMES (hardware, software, applications, operating system)
ARTIST VIDEO, IMAGES and PUBLICITY
R&D PROCESS and IMPLEMENTATION FINDINGS
EXAMPLES OF USER INTERACTION (self-documentations generated by users and documentations generated by ethnographers and performance studies academics, including examples of logs, maps, video and audio recordings, photos, physiological data, etc.)
DOCUMENTS (storyboards; materials given to players; materials given to operators; transcripts, GPS data)
EVALUATION (principal reviews, reports and relevant academic publications)
USER GENERATED REVIEWS/BLOGS/IMAGES/VIDEOS
FUNDERER and SPONSORS
COPYRIGHT and INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESTAGING
INFORMATION ABOUT ARCHIVE DESIGN
REPLAYS AND MASHUPS
These metadata formed the basis of our website, seen in (Figure 6.). Feedback from P. Hulton (Exeter Digital Archives) indicated that a satellite structure (see Figure 2. on the left) is preferable for the documentation of practice, so we used this visual model to design our replay archive (see Figure 3. on the right and also our film for a more precise analysis this process).
In the absence of a formal documentation or even a user-generated documentation, we incorporated an ethnographc video generated by an MRL ethnographer, Peter Tolmie, which was tagged (by Jonathan and Gabriella) in order to show two different approaches to the ‘interpretation’ of the visual content: the Information Studies Perspective (bottom right) and the Performance Studies Perspective (top right). We had insufficient data to link this ethnographic video to further documents (such as an interview to the participant, a running commentary by the ethnographer, etc) and the replay tool would need additional development to allow for accompanying links with the above-listed metadata. A further iteration of this project would have looked at the integration of the website and the replay archive materials.
Figure 2. Satellite Structure --------------------------------------------Figure 3. Re-Play Archive (click image for full picture)
The recommendation is that projects involving artistic practice should make their documentation (and subsequent archiving) part of the overall research strategy. This would allow for the generation of important and project-specific methodologies for the documentation of practice-research and lead to the production of materials documenting all relevant phases of the process, which would then form the archive. It is crucial that these materials are developed in consultation with the artists and researchers involved in the process.
Video Content Tagging - University of Sheffield
Figure 4. provides an example of the video tags applied to the journeys of three cyclists or players from the Brighton Rider Spoke event (see Appendix for full tagging of the videos).
Figure 4. Rider Spoke – Player A. Video Tags (Example)
Act 1 Induction
Location 1 Scene 1 A Coffee Shop Somewhere in Brighton
0.00-3.26 induction; cards; graphic design theme; game play; safety briefing; user interface; artists’ questions; interaction with mobile device; instructions; player queries; event organiser responses
Location 2 Scene 2 Reception
3.26-12.45 reception; payment; cards; player queries; mobile device; Nokia N800; physical design; cycles; user interface; game play; player queries; safety briefing; bike hiring; map; safety; equipping players
Location 3 Scene 3 Bike Collection
12.46-19.47 equipment; player queries; pre-game player interaction; ethnography; kit; microphone; artist-player interaction; ethnographer player interaction.
Act 2 Journey (Player A)
Location 4 Scene 4 Street scene
19.48-22.55 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction; player query; artist instruction; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself;
In order to introduce some control the vocabulary for the tags is drawn from (i) the Rider Spoke IPerG Design Document, and (ii) the question structure. I have also tried to preserve the theatrical metaphor, keying scenes to locations. I would envisage that these tags would (a) form part of a navigable structure such that an archive user (interested for example in the video layer of the archive) could click on 'Brighton Seafront' and click through to all the examples of the use of this location (b) clicking on a question tag such as 'awake', 'promise' would take the archive user not only to the associated audio file but also to the other tagged 'promise' audio files. Once the material is tagged, users (research replay or creative replay) could of course add their own tags and extend the terms/vocabulary initially used by the archive's designers. In terms of replay: clicking on a question tag could also take the archive user to associated question elements of a virtual immersive environment (e.g. as discussed by members of the team from Reading).
Audio Content Tagging
Figure 5. Rider Spoke. Audio Tags. (Example).
Figure 5. (this can be opened to view the full-text data in each field) contains the following attributes of a sample of 20 transcribed and tagged audio files: Location, Date, Time, Fingerprint, Duration, Content Ranking, Rider Question No., Rider Question Text, Rider Response, Content Tags. All of these attributes could potentially be searched and aid in restricting a search e.g. search by rider question number, rider question text, duration, as well content tags. The audio files are a mix of Alan's and my transcriptions. I've used Alan's transcriptions for the Athens event (because they happened to incorporate meta-information about date, time, fingerprint etc), and added my own transcriptions for the Brighton and London Barbican events. Files that have been transcribed are a selection of files that Blast Theory assigned a '5' rank to across all events and questions - thus potentially enabling a demonstration of how a user of the archive (e.g. a researcher) might navigate within and across content that shares common tags. Thus, if it is feasible, we can now show how a user of the archive can navigate within and across a particular media type e.g. video, as well as within and across audio files, and across media types i.e. video and audio. For example clicking on the question tag 'holding hand') in one of the video files (e.g. Rider Player C, Location 6, Scene 8, A Park nr. Tower Blocks, 21.12-22.35,Rider question; question 2a; holding hand) could take the user to other examples of the 'holding hand' audio content (i.e. audio files 10, 17-19). Alternatively, it may only be possible to take users from such a tag to a database of audio files that could then be searched. In my assigning of content tags I have drawn on the definition of rank 5 i.e. "I would love to listen to this: exceptional, hilarious, moving, surprising, unique" and selected words from the Rider's text that in my judgment identify what Blast Theory consider to be unique in their response and thus deserving of a 5 ranking. This is a process that could be subsequently automated - and/or extended through users of the archive (e.g. researchers) annotating/assigning further tags to the files, this depends on their disciplinary background/project interested as they replay the archive.
The Web Interface - University of Nottingham
Access issues meant that a ‘buffer’ between the MRL servers and outside world needed to be created. In order to accomplish this we created a web-based service that accessed the materials associated with Rider Spoke through a password protected interface.
The web system was based on the list (as seen in Figure 1.). It was a simple list of hyperlinks that linked through to a variety of data sources, ranging from artist biographies through to questionnaire data. The purpose of this was to provide an overview of existing data sources, related ephemera and post-event data (such as User Generated Content and reviews) so that researchers were able to quickly see what data/information sources were available to them. The links were colour coded in order to provide an easy way to see the relationships between the data sources. This page also allowed other people in the Riders Have Spoken project to see what materials were available for them to use. From a research point of view this ‘top level view’, could be applied to all event/performance-based MRL projects thereby providing access to a large amount of information that could be further examined.
Figure 6. Riders Have Spoken Web Interface
It is envisaged that these pages will be integrated in the Digital Replay System to provide researchers with a ‘quick-view’ of the materials available to them.
The Digital Replay System - University of Nottingham
After a series of meetings it was decided that the best tool to use to prototype our ideas was the Digital Replay System, developed in the Mixed Reality Lab – Software Outline , “Organising and interpreting large and heterogeneous data sets is a challenge with the large quantities of data produced by social science research. Synchronising video files and system logs, organising digitized video files, replaying the information in meaningful ways, and adding meta data to enable the analysis of these data sets are all motivation for the development of the Digital Replay System. Much current research involves the use of many separate tools, often not tailored to the job at hand. The DRS brings together and extends the functionality of these tools to enable social science researchers to gain maximum information from their collected data”.
The DRS description - http://www.ncess.ac.uk/research/digital_records/drs/details/
Figure 7. This shows the DRS system with different datasets loaded. Bottom left - Ethnographic view, top left – GPS data, top right – time line, bottom right windows – tags created by Gabriella and Jonathan (click image for full picture)
The interface implemented using the DRS is a low fidelity prototype (meaning in this case that although most proposed interface components are visible - giving the appearance of functionality - the actual implementation lacks depths so that it cannot actually be used for serious study since data only exists for a few users). Rather, our purpose was to investigate what components of a data replay and interrogation system would be useful (and tractable to develop) in order to better guide data capture requirements for subsequent events. During our discussions it became clear that “raw data” can never be viewed directly, rather is will always be seen through the lens of a re-player mechanism. The choice of this mechanism is often bound to the ideology of the person creating the device. For this reason, all windows were labelled with the name of the person who either created the data, or created that view of the data. For example, the video footage was created by an ethnographer following a participant on a bike with an accompanying audio track recorded by a device attached to the rider's chest. In the interface, this combined view was labelled “Peter's Ethnography”. Two potential investigators, with differing research agendas, independently tagged rider activity using a coding of their own devising “Gabriella's Tags” and “Jonathan's Tags”. The map view shows the GPS data collected by a mobile phone worn by the rider – however, the GPS data cannot be considered a “true” representation of a rider's situation any more than a text file of tagged activities can reveal what a rider was truly doing - since it is prone to all manner of distortions and interpretations. Indeed, since all data has been synchronised, it is often clear how far the GPS position has wavered from the rider's actual location when compared to the Video view. From the perspective of an interface designer, it is difficult to know how best to devise a replay system when that system will depend on the unpredictable future agenda of the person viewing the archive. If the goal is to record the experience itself, then none of the recordings we have made offer a first person perspective. All are ether re-representations of logged data (e.g. video, audio, log data), or re-interpretation of the same. The “many windowed” approach we offer here shows only a small number of the many differing views there can be of an experience. It may be possible to fuse these into a coherent whole, but it is likely that the best way to do this will be on a project-by-project basis as local requirements dictate.
A short film was made to illustrate our ideas. Click arrow to play.
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Exploring Re-Representation - University of Reading
In developing the practical project, we were able to experience some of the insights that would be key to evolving creative industries. We were able to explore various factors involved when 'artists and engineers work directly together.
A strength of immersive virtual environments is that they provide a space in which any scene, experience or artwork can be realised. Essentially, they could be a perfect 3D blank canvas. However, from a technical viewpoint there are various limitations, and throughout the project it was felt that these were sometimes holding back the flow of creativity. Kate would constantly provide streams of ideas and directions, only to have them curtailed by what was realistically possible with the allotted time and technology. Despite clashes in our art/engineering outlooks, we discovered opportunities for creative solutions to reach the final outcome. We noted that we both had doubts about our abilities within the other’s discipline, but a number of our developments/advances were only discovered from having this fresh, converse outlook, and this was seen as adding strength to the project.
What are the potential creative uses of record and replay and what requirements do they raise?
Throughout the project we have asked the question what are we recording and replaying, are we documenting an experience or creating a new experience? Participating in the real life Rider Spoke event makes the participant very aware of their physical body cycling through busy streets but the sound track and questions encourages introspection and reverie.
Through our experiments it became clear that the use of documentation, mapping and simulation of the Rider Spoke experience was less satisfying than a replay which stimulated a sense of the rider spoke participants thoughts, navigating through the sounds, visualising a listening space, exploring the layering between memory and reality and between drawn and photographic space.
Working with the idea of replay in an immersive environment encouraged a particular way of working with the Rider Spoke archive, the immersive space is mostly a solo experience space, the interaction with the virtual environment can be quite physical as you use your body to navigate through the virtual space. The immersive space is one where its easy to become disorientated yet can be controlled. The immersive environment can promote the character of ‘live experience’ interaction, as the experience is more sensory and multilayered compared to a video documentary where the viewer is a participant rather than viewer.
Figure 8. shows the preliminary sketches of drawn spaces for the application, where each blob has a Rider Spoke recording attached. This creates a general sound of all the voices, and with user tracking and navigation, the sound gets louder as you approach the various blobs. If you enter into the blob you enter a blackness transition layer, then through that layer into a part drawn part photographic space, which contains the music played during the cycling moments in the Rider Spoke experience. From these spaces there would be falling spaces either through a pothole or down a tunnel layer etc. where you would enter a text layer asking a question. The immersive space is build like an onion where the participant can travel through each layer.
Figure 8. The preliminary sketches of drawn spaces for the application
The level of immersion that we wanted to use for the experience had a direct impact on the systems we would be developing for. Although a CAVE would provide the best fidelity in transporting a user to the replay environment, the limitations of such a system would have made accessibility and transportation of the project non-viable. Instead a single rear projected screen was used, enabling stereo visuals and supporting user head tracking. Two types of screens were used, a larger fixed installation at Reading University, and also a transportable one enabling the work to be exhibited as required. A highly portable version was also developed to enable easy demonstration, although at the expense of full user immersion.
The software for the project was written around a flexible framework, ensuring that the application could be run on numerous systems from a laptop to the CAVE, and which could easily be adapted to using different data and media.
What are the potential research uses of record and replay and what requirements do they raise?
The onion layered immersive environment could act as an entry point to the archive data. The use of layering allows the viewer to decide if they want a performative, interactive experience or a more research based viewing of data.
The importance of obtaining permissions for public presentation of data before the original performative event has occurred was stressed.
What technical challenges arise from new forms of record and replay and how might we address them?
Working with virtual models in an immersive space is exciting for artists. Navigating the objects built in a 3d modelling programme allows for the discovery of new spaces as you can explore the internal spaces of a model. However, these tools are generally complex and require an extensive learning curve, often making it difficult for artists to quickly develop their ideas. This is further complicated by the interoperability between the resulting models and the virtual environment, which often necessitates conversions between different formats. A solution to this would be to provide an immersive environment within which an artist could naturally create. It should provide tools that are easy to use, with interfaces similar to those they would use in the real world. This approach would remove the complexities of programming or other technical issues, and allow them to concentrate purely on their artistic output.
One of the first experiments we did was to build a version of Rider Spoke for Second Life; I think that virtual worlds as a site for replay is something that would be interesting to explore further. The use of directional, multichannel sound in the immersive space has a profound effect on how we experience the visual.
What artistic, business and social (e.g., legal and ethical) challenges must be met in this area?
Artistic challenges have been to decide what the terms record and replay mean in the context of a live interactive experience.
Please visit blog for further images and video clips of the immersive experience. See the Blog
The Artists Role - Blast Theory
Blast Theory’s role in the Riders Have Spoken project has been primarily to: consult, advise, provide files, content and background knowledge from the Rider Spoke interactive performance work for cyclists. The two contacts for Blast Theory were Matt Adams (artist) and Julianne Pierce (Executive Producer).
As Rider Spoke is predominantly an audio work, Blast Theory provided audio files to other partners to conduct their research. These audio files have been transcribed for an archive developed by Gabriella Giannachi, Alan Chamberlain, Duncan Rowland and Jonathan Foster and adapted for a virtual reality audio and visual work developed by Kate Allen and Adrian Haffegee at Reading University.
A key interest for Blast Theory in this project has been to work with the partners on how the material generated from the Rider Spoke performance can be adapted to other platforms; its potential presentation to a wider audience; and greater accessibility to the content by the research and academic community.
Meetings - Blast Theory participated in several meetings over the course of the Creator project. Initial meetings were to meet other partners and to exchange information and plan for Riders Have Spoken. During the course of the project, meetings were organised between partners to update on progress and to view and feedback on research projects. Individuals from the Creator project also made appointments with Blast Theory to visit the studios in Portslade to conduct more detailed interviews and research.
11 September
The Riders Have Spoken partners met at the VR and Visualization, ACET Centre at Reading University to present current progress on research projects. This meeting also involved a presentation on the VR project presented on the ACET Power Wall. In addition, Adrian Haffegee gave the partners a tour of the ACET facility and CAVE (virtual reality environment).
22/23 October
Alan Chamberlain visited the Blast Theory studios for the launch of the building/studio development; to meet with Blast Theory and to take part in the Rider Spoke performance.
24 November
Kate Allen visited Blast Theory to participate in the Rider Spoke performance. During the month of November, Blast Theory ran a low-key version of the performance from the Portslade studios, which was available for members of the public and for the Riders Have Spoken partners. Kate Allen took the cycle ride and also updated Matt and Julianne on progress with the VR project and associated blog.
Troubadour Studies - Matt Adams from Blast Theory met with Jonathan Foster from University of Sheffield in August at the Blast Theory studios. The focus of the Troubadour study and interviews is “Understanding 'Collaborative R&D' in Creative Industries, with a core focus on 'collaborating' and interviewees' reflections on the process of 'collaborating' on and across a range of projects or 'cases'.”
Sarah Thelwall also visited the Portslade studios in October to meet with Julianne and interview Matt. The focus of Sarah’s Troubadour Study is collaborative processes across arts and science and academic outcomes of art and science collaborations.
Evaluating potential applications, focusing on use of record and replay of cyclists experiences in transport planning - Lancaster University
The research investigated potential contexts where the methods for record and replay of cyclists experiences developed through Rider Spoke could be implemented for use in urban transport planning. The design of many of the UK’s cities does not adequately reflect the experience of cyclists in urban planning infrastructure. More needs to be done to enhance the quality of roads, pavements and signs.
Rider Spoke has explored how the experience of cyclists can be documented using pervasive and mobile computing. The research by Lancaster University investigated how this could be applied beyond gaming, within urban planning, or for everyday use by cyclists. A range of techniques were deployed, such as interviews and brief field studies. It focused on the city of Manchester, and on two primary user groups: city urban planners, and urban cyclists.
It was found that existing means of documenting the way cyclists use the city are extremely limited. In Manchester there are only 12 sites where cycle use is monitored by a sensing system, and the only data produced is a rudimentary count. Beyond this, teams of volunteers do occasionally cycle designated routes and document the experience, organised by Friends of the Earth, with data shared with Manchester City Council.
The Manchester City Council engineers responsible for creating and maintaining street infrastructure (Highways and Development Section, MEDC) responded positively to the possibility of more accessible qualitative and quantitative data on the experience of cyclists. One potential application identified was to develop a reporting system so that cyclists could 'grade' different routes, with this data used to update a 'route planner' in development specifically for cyclists. Here specific issues arise unique to cyclists, where the condition and nature of roads and rights of way have significant baring on the appropriateness of different routes.
The research has helped prepare the groundwork for a potential research application to EPSRC to coincide with a Car Free Day proposed for Manchester City Centre.
Archiving and presentation at Futuresonic
Potential for further archiving and presentation of the project at Futuresonic was explored.
Futuresonic Urban Festival of Art, Music and Ideas is the UK's leading festival for digital culture, with a history of collaboration with Nottingham University through the PLAN (Pervasive and Locative Arts Network) EPSRC Culture & Creativity network.
FutureEverything, the creative organisation responsible for Futuresonic, are interested in the re-interpretation of Rider Spoke, and potentially in archiving the event as a whole, at the next edition of the festival, Futuresonic 2009, in Manchester UK on 13 - 16 May 2009. Of particular interest are approaches to record and replay of user experience within distributed networks across a city and over extended periods of time. Also of interest is the potential for using VR technology for the recreation of distributed experiences.
Conclusions
The recommendation is that projects involving artistic practice should make their documentation (and subsequent archiving) part of the overall research strategy. This would allow for the generation of important and project-specific methodologies for the documentation of practice-research and lead to the production of materials documenting all relevant phases of the process, which would then form the archive. It is crucial that these materials are developed in consultation with the artists and researchers involved in the process.
We found the creative potential for replay using Virtual Environments was extensive; the replay became a way of bringing together and allowing access to the many different experiences of the original event, rather than trying to be an exact simulation of what has occurred. The Replay gave a sense of some of the original participant experiences, intimate and confessional, but also created a new experience for the re-player, which also gave access to the Rider Spoke archive of sound recordings.
APPENDIX – VIDEO TAGS - J Foster
Rider Spoke – Player A. Video Tags.
Act 1 Induction
Location 1 Scene 1 A Coffee Shop Somewhere in Brighton
0.00-3.26 induction; cards; graphic design theme; game play; safety briefing; user interface; artists’ questions; interaction with mobile device; instructions; player queries; event organiser responses
Location 2 Scene 2 Reception
3.26-12.45 reception; payment; cards; player queries; mobile device; Nokia N800; physical design; cycles; user interface; game play; player queries; safety briefing; bike hiring; map; safety; equipping players
Location 3 Scene 3 Bike Collection
12.46-19.47 equipment; player queries; pre-game player interaction; ethnography; kit; microphone; artist-player interaction; ethnographer player interaction.
Act 2 Journey (Player A)
Location 4 Scene 4 Street scene
19.48-22.55 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction; player query; artist instruction; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself;
Location 5 Scene 5 Street scene: Pedestrian Precinct, Peter Werth/Hugo Boss/aiHouse
22.55-23.25 static game play; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; player response; player records content
Location 6 Scene 6 Street scene: Towards the Sea; Brighton Seafront
23.26-28.18 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction;
Location 7 Scene 7 Brighton Seafront
28.19-29.50 static game play; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; player response; player re-records content; player replays content;
Location 8 Scene 8 Brighton Seafront
29.51-31.21 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction; artist instruction; Rider question; question 2a; holding hand;
Location 9 Scene 9 Brighton Seafront
31.22-32.58 static game play; player carries bike onto beach; Rider question; question 2a; holding hand; player response; player records content
Location 10 Scene 10 Brighton Seafront
32.59-37.12 static game play; player-ethnographer interaction; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; player listens to content; player feedbacks on content; question 4g; violence; player-interface interaction
Location 11 Scene 11 Brighton Seafront
37.13-38.55 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 3c; awake
Location 12 Scene 12 Brighton Seafront
38.56-40.44 static game play; Rider question; question 3c; awake; player response; player records content; player-ethnographer interaction.
Location 13 Scene 13 Brighton Seafront
40.45-42.37 static game play; player-ethnographer interaction; Rider question; question 4c; voyeur; player listens to content; player feedback on content.
Location 14 Scene 14 Brighton Seafront
42.38-45.33 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction; artist instruction; Rider question; question 4e; not returning.
Location 15 Scene 15 Brighton Seafront
45.34-47.43 static game play; Rider question; question 4e; not returning; player response; player records content.
Scene 16 Brighton Seafront
47.44-51.45 static game play; player-ethnographer interaction; Rider question; question 4c; voyeur; player-interface interaction; question 5; promise; player listens to content; player feedback on content; player feedback on game design
Location 16 Scene 17 Brighton Seafront, Return to the City
51.46-54.42 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 4a; father.
Location 17 Scene 18 Street Scene
54.43-55.25 static game play; player-ethnographer interaction; player-interface interaction; swallows.
Location 18 Scene 19 Street Scene, Return to Seafront
55.26-58.28 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction; pre-question 4a player-ethnographer interaction;
Location 19 Scene 20 Brighton Seafront
58.29-58.34 static game play; player-ethnographer interaction; player-interface interaction; swallows.
Location 20 Scene 21 Brighton Seafront
58.35-59.24 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 21 Scene 22 Brighton Seafront
59.25-1.01 static game play; Rider question; question 4a; father; player response; player records content.
Location 21 Scene 23 Brighton Seafront
1.02-1.02 static game play; question 5; promise; player listens to content; player-ethnographer interaction; player feedback on content; player feedback on game design; player-interface interaction
Location 22 Scene 24 Brighton Seafront
1.03-1.04.42 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 4b; alright;
Location 23 Scene 25 Brighton Seafront
1.04.43-1.05.46 static game play; player-interface interaction; swallows; player-ethnographer interaction; player query.
Location 24 Scene 26 Brighton Seafront
1.05.47-1.09.08 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 25 Scene 27 Brighton Seafront
1.09.09-1.10.28 static game play; ; Rider question; question 4b; alright; player response; player records content.
Location 26 Scene 28 Brighton Seafront
1.10.29-1.11.27 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 5; promise;
Location 27 Scene 29 Brighton Seafront
1.11.28-1.12.43 static game play; ; Rider question; question 5; promise; player response; player records content; player-ethnographer interaction.
Scene 30 Brighton Seafront
1.12.44-1.13.04 static game play; artist instruction; return; player-ethnographer interaction.
Act 3 Return
Scene 31 Brighton Seafront
1.13.05-1.20.30 ethnographer-player discussion; game play; game design; player experience; player biography.
Location 28 Scene 32 Brighton Seafront, Return to the City
1.20.31-1.36.02 mobile game play; navigating the city; player return; ethnographer return; player-ethnographer interaction; city description; city experience at night.
Location 29 Scene 33 Bike Return
1.36.03-1.37:53 bike return; player-event organiser interaction.
Rider Spoke – Player B. Video Tags.
Act 1 Induction
Location 1 Scene 1 Reception
0.00-07.13 reception; payment; player queries; mobile device; Nokia N800; cycles; user interface; game play; player queries; event organiser responses; safety briefing; bike hiring; map; safety; registration; instructions; Rider questions; player-event organiser interaction;
07.14-9.54 Scene 2 Reception
equipping players; instructions; player queries; event organiser responses; player-event organiser interaction;
Location 2 Scene 3 Bike Collection
9.55-13.11 equipment; player queries; ethnography; kit; microphone; artist-player interaction; ethnographer player interaction; player-event organiser interaction; ethnography team-player interaction; safety.
Act 2 Journey (Player B)
Location 3 Scene 4 Street scene(s)
13.12-21.34 mobile game play; navigating the city; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself;
Location 4 Scene 5 Rose Garden, Preston Park, Brighton
21.35-23.50 static game play; player replays instruction; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; player response; player records content.
Location 5 Scene 6 Street scene
23.51-25.56 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 6 Scene 7 Preston Park? Brighton
25.57-26.35 static game play; player silent?/not audible?/swallows?
Location 7 Scene 8 Street Scene
26.36-27.24 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 8 Scene 9 Street Scene
27.25-27.46 static game play; player-ethnographer interaction;
Location 9 Scene 10 Street Scene
27.47-28.22 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction;
Location 10 Scene 11 Street Scene
28.23-29.45 static game play; player silent?/not audible?/swallows?
Location 11 Scene 12 Street Scene
29.46-31.33 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 12 Scene 13 Street Scene
31-34-31.57 static game play; swallows; player-ethnographer interaction; player query; ethnographer response
Location 13 Scene 14 Street Scene
31.58-34.40 mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction; player takes bike off road; player finds remote location;
Location 14 Scene 15 Preston Gardens
34.41-37.56 Static game play; swallows; games instructions ‘go on’; player-ethnographer interaction; player interface query; pink bird; hiding; Rider question; player response; player records content; player replays content.
Location 15 Scene 16 Street Scene
37.57-40.25 Mobile game play; navigating the city; player-ethnographer interaction;
Location 16 Scene 17 Street Scene
40.26-41.29 Static game play; player listens to content (secret?)
Location 17 Scene 18 Street Scene
41.30-42.33 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 18 Scene 19 Street Scene
42.34-43.15 Static game play; player listens to content (holding hand?);
Location 19 Scene 20 Street Scene
43.16-44.18 Mobile game play; navigating the city
Location 20 Scene 21 Street Scene
44.19-46.27 Static game play; player listens to content (father?)
Location 21 Scene 22 Street Scene
46.28-48.36 Mobile game play; navigating the city
Location 21 Scene 22 Street Scene
48.37-48.52 Static game play; swallows?
Location 22 Scene 23 Street Scene
48.53-50.06 Mobile game play; navigating the city
Location 23 Scene 24 Street Scene
50.07-50.11 Static game play; swallows?
Location 24 Scene 25 Street Scene
50.12-50.49 Mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 2c; past.
Location 25 Scene 26 Outside Brighton College
50-50-53.06 Static game play; Rider question; question 2c; past; player response; player records content.
Location 26 Scene 27 Street Scene
53.07-53.56 Mobile game play; navigating the city
Location 27 Scene 28 Street Scene
53.57-55.05 Static game play; player listens to content; Rider question; question 5; promise;
Location 28 Scene 29 Street Scene
55.06-56.08 Mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 4c; voyeur
Location 29 Scene 30 Street Scene
56.09-56.35 Static game play; player interface interaction; swallows?
Act 3 Return
Location 30 Scene 31 Street Scene
56.36-58.00 Mobile game play; navigating the city; Rider question; question 4c; voyeur; player response; player records content; player return
Location 31 Scene 32 Street Scene
58.01-58.22 Static game play; player interface interaction; swallows? player return
Location 31 Scene 33 Street Scene
58.23-58.45 Mobile game play; navigating the city; player return
Location 32 Scene 34 Bike Return
58.46-1.02.56 bike return; player-event organiser interaction; player-ethnographer interaction;
Rider Spoke – Player C. Video Tags.
Act 1 Induction
Location 1 Scene 1 Reception
0.00-2.52 registration; player queries; artist response; mobile device; Nokia N800; rider kit; equipment; instructions; game play; user interface
02.53-7.34 Scene 2 Reception
registration; player-event organiser interaction; equipping players; safety; user interface; game instructions
Location 2 Scene 3 Bike Collection
7.35-11.01 player-event organiser interaction; ethnography team-player interaction; safety; equipment; ethnography; kit; microphone; event organiser-player interaction; ethnographer-player interaction; microphone problem;
Act 2 Journey (Player C)
Location 3 Scene 4 Street Scene(s)
11.02-14.42 mobile game play; navigating the city; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; artist instruction; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself;
Location 4 Scene 5 St Bartholomew’s Church, Brighton
14.43-16.02 static game play; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; player response; player records content.
Location 4 Scene 6 St Bartholomew’s Church, Brighton
16.03-18.56 static game play; Rider question; question 4b; alright; player listens to content
Location 5 Scene 7 Street Scene
18.57-21.11 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 2a; holding hand;
Location 6 Scene 8 A Park nr. Tower Blocks
21.12-22.35 static game play; Rider question; question 2a; holding hand; player response; player records content.
Location 7 Scene 9 Street Scene
22.36-25.50 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 3c; awake;
Location 8 Scene 10 A Hill nr. The Train Station, Brighton
25.51-27.23 static game play; Rider question; question 3c; awake; player response; player records content.
Scene 11 Hill Scene
27.24-27.33 mobile game play; navigating the city;
Scene 12 Hill Scene
27.34-28.16 static game play; Rider question; question 4h; secret; player listens to content
Location 9 Scene 13 Hill-Street Scenes
28.17-31.37 mobile game play; navigating the city; Rider question; question 4h; secret; player listens to content; artist instruction; question 4e; not returning
Location 10 Scene 14 Outside a School
31.38-33.17 static game play; Rider question; question 4e; not returning; player response; player records content.
Location 11 Scene 15 Street Scene
33.18-36.34 mobile game play; navigating the city; Rider question; question 2a; holding hand; player listens to content; ; artist instruction; question 4g; violence;
Location 12 Scene 16 An Alley off Western Road, Brighton
36.35-38.18 static game play; Rider question; question 4g; violence; player response; player records content;
Location 13 Scene 17 Street Scene
38.19-42.43 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 4b; alright;
Location 14 Scene 18 Church, Dyke Road
42.44-44.21 static game play; Rider question; question 4b; alright; player response; player records content;
Scene 19 Church, Dyke Road
44.22-45.45 Static game play; Rider question; question 1; describe yourself; player listens to content;
Location 15 Scene 20 Street Scene
45.46-50.32 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 4a; father;
Location 16 Scene 21 Brighton Seafront
50.33-53.28 Static game play; player-interface interaction; player silence
Location 17 Scene 22 Street Scenes
53.29-55.12 Mobile game play; navigating the city;
Location 18 Scene 23 Street Scene
55.13-57.07 Static game play; Rider question; question 4a; father; player response; player records content;
Location 19 Scene 24 Street Scene
57.08-59.18 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; Rider question; question 5; promise;
Location 20 Scene 25 Street Scene
59.19-1.00.03 Static game play; Rider question; question 5; promise; player response; player records content;
Act 3 Return
Location 21 Scene 26 Street Scenes
1.00.04-1.03.47 mobile game play; navigating the city; artist instruction; player return
Location 22 Scene 27 Street Scene
1.03.48-1.04.04 Bike return; event organiser-player interaction
Scene 28 Street Scene
1.04.05-1.09.06 Ethnography; equipment; kit return; payment; ethnographer-player interaction;
DRS - Digital Replay System
Digital Records for e-Social Science
Funded by ESRC Research Grants RES-149-25-0035 & RES-149-25-1067
