Thread by @3Dgroovanstones

#immaterial event is just about to begin in Kelvin Hall Lecture Theatre!

The aim of these #immaterial events is to explore how AR/VR/XR technologies and media intersect with research and practice embedded in material culture - @RachelOpitz

@RachelOpitz on what makes a place - we encounter one another in public, shared, social space - social encounters are a performance

@RachelOpitz the material character of the place conditions the performance of social encounters in it - so what happens when we introduce AR/VR/XR into the dynamic

@maltron3D on what makes a place - creating 3D world's allows one to recontextualise a place, can overlay reality and take advantage of what we have

@CathAMClarke making meaning in VR - don't want it to be instantly gettable - if you view the city from the top of a building, while you feel you 'get' the place, in actuality it distances you from the city

@StuartJeffrey - making place is not just what happens there, but also what happened there

Next focus - is VR focusing too much on the individual experience rather than shared?

@maltron3D able to create an immersive experience with a single projector and dome to create a group experience, but the drive for VR is toward a consumer product

@CathAMClarke focusing on the visual is exclusionary - create medieval soundscapes for an embodied experience - thinking multisensory, outside of the digital (cathedrals and stained glass an analogue AR), creating an opportunity for the unexpected, way to create an immersive exp

@StuartJeffrey - shared experiences and performance - part of the experience of travel is graffiti, inserting yourself into previous groups of travelers - digitally - lack of permanence and mark-making

@StuartJeffrey corporate abandonment plays a big part in the ephemeral nature and impermanence in engaging with the digital - Geocities! Have to be honest about it, it isn't permanent

@CathAMClarke like the idea of adding and making your mark in a digital space, allowing users to change the 'place', avoid imposing a master perspective/story

@maltron3D an app isn't necessary for creating an experience - created a guided walking tour for Dundee with a Gothic horror twist, if you didn't wear headphones and allowed sound in, soundscape melded with the sound of city - at end, told to make their mark with chalk on a wall

@maltron3D Set enough narrative points, but allow users to fill in with their own story

@StuartJeffrey mixed media installation by GSA where digital features from West Calder traveled to other areas - when it returned to W. Calder, members of community brought in related content from their own personal experience

@CathAMClarke VR needs to be challenging - there is a problem with ease of the commodification of a place and providing a simple narrative in historical places - AR would suit providing competing narratives

@StuartJeffrey We want to untailor information to challenge current narratives

@RachelOpitz Should the goal then be co-production in AR?

@maltron3D Agency very important - always concern for data privacy - but it can unlock people's creativity - when we engage with the 'other' we bring ourselves to that, requires users input/feedback from start to the end

@StuartJeffrey agrees strongly with the idea of co-production; not even restricted to AR/VR or digital - community groups can create content - obsession with accuracy by heritage bodies; process of production with community more important

@CathAMClarke not just a problem in heritage, but also academia - potentially paradigm shift-inducing, community engaged projects give academics license to work more playfully, opens up new spaces to work in - need to be ethical, and be straightforward about how we change things

@maltron3D as a maker - go on collective journey with others, AR/VR allows us to take these risks

@RachelOpitz Our role as makers/practicioners/academics - what practices can we put into place to make this happen?

@maltron3D you end up in a bubble of people thinking the same way - be aware of that, pull back, engage with different people and practice - self reflection required, but make cool things with cool people in the broadest sense

@maltron3D Need to be open to collaborate in interesting ways - these are happening already - confusing at first, esp with terminology, need to spend time together at different workplaces to understand their different processes

@CathAMClarke what might work in terms of process - when people engage with place, it's usually through something unpredictable - a found object or encounter - difficulty here is that they need to make choice to engage by downloading...not replicable

@StuartJeffrey often struck by how previous practices are replicated, but using new technology.

@StuartJeffrey Location based soundscape, meant to be an experience, fundamental to project was that they were creating a tool for users to adapt - use your music to associate with certain places. Didn't happen, but what mattered would have been the output, not the tool itself.

@RachelOpitz Don't want to let tech dictate practice, but need to take opportunity to rethink our practice because we have these new supports.

@CathAMClarke Don't give people enough credit for what they can process; project in Swansea - pulling out master narrative and giving people credit to be able to handle the messiness of the history behind the place.

Opening out to the broader room for comment - @GCBeale while we don't want to repeat practices from the past, one of the things tech offers is being able to engage with the practices of others

@RachelOpitz immersive technologies offer opportunity for collaboration, everyone brings their own perspective, like LiDAR and GIS in its early days

@CathAMClarke Not something one person can do on their own, almost had to be collaborative - can ask, can it be done? Don't get the same experience when writing an article

@RachelOpitz Immersive experiences inspire interdisciplinary - so does place, things we gather around, so the intersection of the two has potential

@GCBeale working on York Gaol with game designers asking 'why' helped make the result more potent for people - more emotional response

@maltron3D photorealism not necessary, simplicity often most effective

@StuartJeffrey objects are meaningless without the people - making these connections with people in the past; art is a good way of evoking emotion. Grasp the moment with technology and engage with it; don't want to reproduce siloing of domains, not just archaeology or nature

From audience: Things are only meaningful with our own projection on them - can be a million things without excluding one; heritage has to be pragmatic; huge potential. Viewers can choose perspective. Technology allows us to visit places we can't go

@CathAMClarke using AR to go into location that is invisible or unable to access; not just literal reinstatement, AR is liminal - can be real or fantastic landscapes

@StuartJeffrey not able to reproduce experience of going to inaccessible place, need to focus on providing a complementary experience - Staffa a good example

@CathAMClarke AR liberates from factual history - leads to questions about ethics, but can create focalised or revisionist perspective

At what point do we make stuff up, and when do we point it out? @maltron3D Make sure there is a diverse range of stories being told so that the audience can make their own choice

#immaterial offers more freedom for reconstructions and visualisations than the material

Final thoughts! @maltron3D there's always a horrible side to VR/AR, so need to be aware and combat it; positive side is the collaboration that it inspires

@CathAMClarke all seem to agree on the capabilities that excite us - the absurd, messiness, enable open ended and unpredictability of AR, liminal, serendipity, encourage possible encounters in experiences of place, collaboration and co-production

@StuartJeffrey collaborations offer opportunity to break down divisions; digital places in of themselves, there is ugliness, so we need to mediate that; interesting adventures for research with a bit of caution

And that's the end of the #immaterial event! The recording will be available through the website shortly. The next event will be in Dundee on 13 May!

@threadreaderapp unroll please!