PERFORMING ARTS RESOURCE CENTERS

1. PERFORMING ARTS RESOURCE CENTERS Opening Museums and Archives to A Wider World

2. WHO WE ARE • What we’re NOT • A museum or institution of higher education. • What we ARE • The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre (GSRT) is a theater company based in NYC. • Our mission is to … • Promote and support innovation in the performing arts • Work internationally to shake up the creative environment • Use innovative technology as a tool for encouraging innovation in form and process. • Our audiences are primarily … • Performing arts professionals • K12, undergraduate and graduate students in the performance arts … and why we have a different perspective on GloPAC.

3. HOW WE’RE INVOLVED • We are developing concepts and templates for public facilities (PARCs) • Interfaces to allow educators, curators, and others to pull material from the GloPAC database and present them in audience-specific environments • We provide the Russian connection to GloPAC • St. Petersburg Museum • Russian historians, translators and archivists • PARC for Meyerhold Memorial Museum in Moscow • We are developing systems for archiving Complex Media Objects • Multimedia formats beyond still images ... animation, video, 3D models • We are encouraging involvement of contemporary theaters in GloPAC GSRT is a founding member and consultant to GloPAC.

4. RELEVANT SKILLS We bring a wide range of digital media, software design, and performing arts experience to the GloPAC effort. • Theater and film • Directors • Writers • Stage Managers • Designers • Set • Costume • Lighting • Projection • Technical production • Cinematographers • Digital media • Project managers • Designers • Graphics • Animation • 3D • Programmers • Web • Interactive • Database • Digital video production

5. OUR GLOPAC GOALS • From our perspective, it’s important to distinguish clearly between the various goal and objectives of GloPAC-related projects. • In the GloPAC scheme of things, there are two fundamentally different kinds of initiatives, with very different focuses. • The objective of a GloPAD (Performing Arts Database) initiative is to collect and digitize items from a specific performing arts collection, including the essential archival information associated with each item. The primary goal is preservation. • The objective of a GloPARC (Performing Arts Resource Center) is to enhance the value of that material by making it more interesting and accessible to a wider range of audiences, including students, artists, and the general public. The goal is education, enlightenment, entertainment. • Although many GloPAC pilot projects combine activities related to both initiatives, we think it’s important to emphasize the distinction in order to clarify our strategies and architectural decisions. PAD = BUILDING FOUNDATIONS PARC = OPENING DOORS

6. AUDIENCES • One of our guiding concepts as performing artists is a sensitivity to audiences … • Who is watching the performance? • How many are sitting in the seats? • What captures their attention? • PAD audiences • The primary audience for a PAD is scholars and graduate students for a specific performing arts tradition or artist, e.g. Noh, Meyerhold, etc. • PARC audiences • PARCs can help expand that audience in several different directions • Scholars outside of the specialization • Other languages/ cultures • History, art, literature, film • Students at different educational levels • To different professional audiences • Designers, directors, performers, etc. • To the general public Scholars Inside specialty Graduate Students Undergraduates K12 Outside specialty Performing Artists General Public

7. BENEFITS • There are potentially enormous benefits to broadening access to PADs through PARCs • Greater visibility and awareness of the tradition or artist • Greater insight from combining observations across traditions and artists • Greater support from more and different constituencies MORE VALUE / PERSON X MORE PEOPLE = GREATER VALUE

8. OPENING DOORS • Building on top of the objective information in the PAD, we can add elements that reach out to new audiences and bring them to the subject … • Organization • Context • Interpretation • Metaphor • At the same time, we can create communities to encourage long-term involvement with the subject matter How do PARCs open doors?

9. OBJECTIVE VS. INTERPRETIVE CONTENT Interpretive Content Objective Content K12 Course Public Site PhD Dissertation Archival Content Metadata Media Assets • The first step is to build an information structure that support the addition of interpretive material, separated from the objective material in the PAD. • PADs based on “objective” information which is specific to the particular media object. • In order to create PARCs which are linked to the PAD material, we need to allow PARC builders to easily add new organizational structure and interpretive material, without disrupting the objective archival material. • The same PAD material might be used in many PARCs, addressed to a wide variety of audiences and purposes.

10. ANNOTATION TOOLS Interface / Interaction Interpretive Decisions Author Interface Viewer Interface GloPAD Data Interface Builder / Annotation Tracker GloPAD Objects Metadata Media Assets • The next step is to build tools and facilities that make it easy to link PAD assets into PARC elements. • PARC content can be separated into interface design and annotation, both of which are interpretive decisions by the PARC builder. • In fact, there are always at least two separate interfaces, the Viewer Interface used by the end-user (target audience) of the PARC, and an authoring interface used by the builder (even when building a PARC is done “manually” by a programmer, an interface is still required to the underlying data. • The interface media and the annotation must be stored and tracked, just like the archival data and media, and the links between objective and interpretive data must be preserved.

11. PARC COMPONENTS Interface / Interaction Annotation Decisions Author Interface Viewer Interface GloPAD Data AssetTracker GloPAD Objects Metadata Media Assets • What kind of components does a PARC have, and what is its relationship to the PAD components? • Below are some of the elements of theater-related sites that GSRT has built: • Articles and essays • Timelines • Annotated maps or graphics • Annotated media (video, audio) • Annotated scripts • Glossaries and dictionaries • Customized lists and queries • Other interactive experiences (exercises, 3D models with annotation, etc.)

12. THE PARC BUILDER CONCEPT Articles Timelines Annotated Maps Annotated Video Annotated Scripts Customized Queries • GSRT is working with GloPAC to develop a comprehensive “PARC Builder” facility … • The PARC Builder will consist of an integrated series of tools that make it easier to create a variety of different kinds of PARCs for different audiences • Each tool represents a different interface to PAD assets and data • The interfaces are designed to assist PARC authors to achieve their pedagogical goals, explicate and dramatize specialized topics, and provide context to GloPAD content GloPAD

13. ORGANIZING EXPERIENCES Linear Experience • In essence, a media archive is inherently multidimensional. • On the other hand, an “audience experience”, like an undergraduate course, is fundamentally linear, a series of content elements designed to be experienced over time. Intro to Asian Theater 201 Annotated Scripts Interactive Exercises Annotated Video Maps Timelines Essays • One of the most fundamental challenges is helping PARC authors to organize archival data into meaningful experiences Multidimensional Archive

14. DRAG AND DROP The Monkey King • The PARC Builder tools will allow PARC authors to “drag and drop” elements from GloPADs into end-user interfaces that are organized around a linear metaphor, e.g. an annotated play script. Annotated Script Photos, Costume Designs, Video Clips • The objective of the PARC Builder tools is to make it easy for authors to “editorialize”, mediating between the objective multidimensional PAD and the more linear interpretive PARC.

15. METAPHORS • We are planning to use software development facilities that allow for a wide range of interactive metaphors and experiences, beyond those available with basic HTML. • Interface software may include Flash, streaming media, VRML, Ajax, etc. • Many of the PARC tools are based on an organizing metaphor … a map, timeline, stage or set.

16. PROTO-PARC EXAMPLES • The PARC Builder tools, like GloPAD, are under construction • However, GSRT has developed a number of proto-PARC facilities and concepts • On the following pages are some examples

17. INTERACTIVE STUDY GUIDE • These early web-based study guides, sponsored by IBM in 1996, featured interactive graphics, video, and 3D sets.

18. ONLINE THEATRE SURVEY TEXTBOOK • A rich-media textbook on the web supported a semester-long undergraduate course focused on dramatic theory and critical writing..

19. RUSSIAN TEXTBOOK • This online textbook supported a graduate course with students from theater, film, history, and Russian language departments.

20. 3D THEATER MODELS • Both textbooks included audio, video, and interactive exercises, including a variety of animated and interactive 3D theater and set models that were linked with digital archives.

21. MEYERHOLD WEB SITE • The Meyerhold website is a prototype for a “community” PARC that would link to GloPAD, and pull together scholars and students interested in Meyerhold from around the world.

22. MEYERHOLD ETUDE STUDY • The prototype includes video, panoramic photographs, 3D models and historical timelines. For example, an interactive video application allows users to view a performance of one of Meyerhold’s Biomechanics Etudes from 5 different angles.

23. MEYERHOLD TIMELINE AND ARCHIVE • This historical timeline is linked to set designs and production photos.

24. COSTUME COLLECTION • For the Theater Development Fund, we created a prototype of an online version of their costume collection, with over 50,000 items.

25. COSTUME COLLECTION RESEARCH PAGE • Besides extensive query facilities, the prototype included historical background, video tutorials and 3D “object movies”, allowing you to see a costume from all directions.

26. COSTUME COLLECTION TIMELINE • A timeline provided an historical overview with links to archival images and background essays.

27. CONCLUSIONS • PARCs are the public face of PADs. • As new projects and collections are developed, new opportunities will be created to provide wider access. • Both efforts are synergistic and mutually dependent • A PARC is useless without a PAD, and a PAD without a PARC has limited value to the world outside the specialist community. • As online audiences and technologies grow, the opportunities will expand exponentially. • From K12 to the general public, all segments of global society are turning to Internet-based content for education and entertainment. • GloPAC today is just at the beginning of an exciting effort to open up performing arts collections to a wider world. The concepts and tools that support PARCs will evolve as GloPAD expands its collections.