Ian Rankin StoryTrek: New Digital Storytelling and Mapping Technologies for Crime Fiction Readers on Location
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Sch of Arts, English and Languages
Abstract
The project has two main aims: (1) to develop innovative ways of engaging with and self-guiding literary tourists/Ian Rankin readers around Edinburgh in collaboration with academic and industry partners; and (2) to explore the extent to which these new mapping tools have unforeseen (at the time of the original grant) commercial implications applications.
This proposal builds upon research undertaken on an AHRC-funded project entitled 'Visualising European Crime Fiction: New Digital Tools and Approaches to the Study of Transnational Popular Culture' led by Dr. Dominique Jeannerod (who is Co-I on this project). The original project emphasised outreach to librarians, internet users and crime fiction readers but it was not foreseen that new digital technologies for visualising crime fiction might also have commercial applications.
The proliferation of mobile phone and tablet devices equipped with GPS-tracking has created new opportunities for storytelling and mapping that fluidly react to a user's location and movement. This project seeks to develop these opportunities by creating a prototype using a software system called StoryTrek in order to engage literary tourists/Ian Rankin readers in the physical spaces where the writing is set. The prototype output ('a locative narrative') will enable readers to move through Edinburgh while listening to an Ian Rankin/Inspector Rebus novel - Set in Darkness (2000) - that has been specially adapted for this purpose. StoryTrek is the first system that enables this kind of immersive, location-and-movement-aware storytelling; that is, storytelling that aligns user's physical location with story segments activated by specific motion patterns. The StoryTrek system makes it possible to create complex, 'augmented reality' multimedia narratives - in this case, an adaptation of Rankin's Set in Darkness, which has been chosen because it brilliantly places the city of Edinburgh (its physical spaces, its dark history, its myths) at the centre of the narrative and hence lends itself to this kind of adaptation. The software also enables the layering of historical maps and photographs over the contemporary map of Edinburgh (that will form the basis of the application), thereby allowing end-users to see how the city has evolved. This is especially significant in the case of Set in Darkness, which is centrally about the dynamic relationship between Edinburgh's past and present. Orion's audiobook version of the novel, which has been licenced to the project as part of Orion's 'in-kind' contribution, will be edited into 30-40 key extracts, each attached to a particular Edinburgh location, ordered numerically to reflect narrative chronology and saved into separate MP3 files. The MP3 files and additional content (e.g. historical photographs, maps) will be used as the basis for custom coding and building the locative narrative, using the StoryTrek system, which will be undertaken by the International Co-I at Carleton University, Canada.
This proposal seeks to develop the commercial potential of crime fiction as a driver of tourism and enhance this potential by engaging with new software technologies and applications being developed in the creative economy. Rankin has been chosen for this project because he is the bestselling author of twenty one crime novels set in Edinburgh (i.e. worldwide sales of over thirty million books); because his work is renowned for an ability to imaginatively portray his respective setting; and because it already draws significant numbers of tourists to Edinburgh, thereby establishing a clear demand for what is being proposed. By working closely with the project's commercial partner and Rankin's publisher, Orion, and StoryTrek's designer (who is International Co-I) the aim is not simply to create a working prototype but specifically to market test it, using Orion's contacts and marketing expertise, and therefore to explicitly develop its commercial potential.
This proposal builds upon research undertaken on an AHRC-funded project entitled 'Visualising European Crime Fiction: New Digital Tools and Approaches to the Study of Transnational Popular Culture' led by Dr. Dominique Jeannerod (who is Co-I on this project). The original project emphasised outreach to librarians, internet users and crime fiction readers but it was not foreseen that new digital technologies for visualising crime fiction might also have commercial applications.
The proliferation of mobile phone and tablet devices equipped with GPS-tracking has created new opportunities for storytelling and mapping that fluidly react to a user's location and movement. This project seeks to develop these opportunities by creating a prototype using a software system called StoryTrek in order to engage literary tourists/Ian Rankin readers in the physical spaces where the writing is set. The prototype output ('a locative narrative') will enable readers to move through Edinburgh while listening to an Ian Rankin/Inspector Rebus novel - Set in Darkness (2000) - that has been specially adapted for this purpose. StoryTrek is the first system that enables this kind of immersive, location-and-movement-aware storytelling; that is, storytelling that aligns user's physical location with story segments activated by specific motion patterns. The StoryTrek system makes it possible to create complex, 'augmented reality' multimedia narratives - in this case, an adaptation of Rankin's Set in Darkness, which has been chosen because it brilliantly places the city of Edinburgh (its physical spaces, its dark history, its myths) at the centre of the narrative and hence lends itself to this kind of adaptation. The software also enables the layering of historical maps and photographs over the contemporary map of Edinburgh (that will form the basis of the application), thereby allowing end-users to see how the city has evolved. This is especially significant in the case of Set in Darkness, which is centrally about the dynamic relationship between Edinburgh's past and present. Orion's audiobook version of the novel, which has been licenced to the project as part of Orion's 'in-kind' contribution, will be edited into 30-40 key extracts, each attached to a particular Edinburgh location, ordered numerically to reflect narrative chronology and saved into separate MP3 files. The MP3 files and additional content (e.g. historical photographs, maps) will be used as the basis for custom coding and building the locative narrative, using the StoryTrek system, which will be undertaken by the International Co-I at Carleton University, Canada.
This proposal seeks to develop the commercial potential of crime fiction as a driver of tourism and enhance this potential by engaging with new software technologies and applications being developed in the creative economy. Rankin has been chosen for this project because he is the bestselling author of twenty one crime novels set in Edinburgh (i.e. worldwide sales of over thirty million books); because his work is renowned for an ability to imaginatively portray his respective setting; and because it already draws significant numbers of tourists to Edinburgh, thereby establishing a clear demand for what is being proposed. By working closely with the project's commercial partner and Rankin's publisher, Orion, and StoryTrek's designer (who is International Co-I) the aim is not simply to create a working prototype but specifically to market test it, using Orion's contacts and marketing expertise, and therefore to explicitly develop its commercial potential.
Planned Impact
The Rankin StoryTrek aims to directly engage crime fiction readers and literary tourists with a new and exciting way of relating the specificities of crime fiction to the environment or place that has produced it. One general benefit will be the creation of an innovative prototype that has commercialisation potential and that demonstrates what can be achieved through close collaboration between academics, a software designer, a major publisher, and an internationally bestselling novelist in service of the creative economy.
The main benefits will be experienced by end-users (literary tourists, crime fiction readers) who will be able to use the prototype application to experience Ian Rankin's Set in Darkness as hypertext and adapted audiobook while simultaneously moving through the place it is set and in doing so gain a richer, more detailed understanding of relationship between fiction and place and of crime fiction's capacities for immersing readers in imaginatively conceived 'real' places. By layering a map of Edinburgh - that will form the basis of the Rankin StoryTrek - with historical photographs and maps and critical commentary, users will also gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the city's past and present and the novel's complex thematisation of this relationship. The direct benefit of the prototype will be captured and measured via feedback from users and this feedback will be used to amend and tweak the StoryTrek.
The Rankin StoryTrek is built upon a well-defined demand, whereby Rankin's significance to Edinburgh's tourist industry and infrastructure has been established. The prototype has the potential to develop this demand, to the benefit of literary tourism in Edinburgh, while at the same time giving Rankin's publisher, Orion, an innovative platform to promote the work of one of their most famous authors. This pathway to impact will be further underscored by the involvement of Orion as project partner, insofar as the Group Rights, Audio and Digital Director the Digital Development and Technical Director at Orion have committed to help market-test and publicise the project using their extensive email/user-group lists and to include it as part of a larger celebration of 'Rebus at 30' to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the first Rebus novel (2017).
Another beneficiary will be the StoryTrek designer who, as a result of this project, will be able to assess how well the software system can deliver a location-and-movement story of Set in Darkness's level of narrative sophistication and complexity. This will be the first time that an entire novel has been adapted for this purpose. StoryTrek as a brand will greatly benefit from the exposure resulting from the collaboration with a major global publisher - and this will, in turn, help in the longer-term ambition to turn StoryTrek into an open source (i.e. non-proprietorial) software system.
The Rankin StoryTrek authoring tool and reading client can be downloaded, free of charge, from a dedicated website housed in the Hyperlab at Carleton University and with links to it from Orion's corporate website. This will allow users to use their preferred devices.
One important outcome of the project is to 'prove' that the concept works and if it does, project partners are keen to explore whether it can be commercialised (i.e. whether users would be willing to pay for the product) and investigations, to this end, will take place at the end of the funding period. This pathway to impact will be further strengthened by a briefing meeting to be held at Hachette UK headquarters in London, the country's largest publishing group comprising Headline, Hodder & Stoughton, Quercus, Little Brown, and Orion. This will give the project team and partners the chance to think about the successes and limitations of the prototype and to discuss their sustainability in the long term, and to think about further collaborations involving new writers and new locations.
The main benefits will be experienced by end-users (literary tourists, crime fiction readers) who will be able to use the prototype application to experience Ian Rankin's Set in Darkness as hypertext and adapted audiobook while simultaneously moving through the place it is set and in doing so gain a richer, more detailed understanding of relationship between fiction and place and of crime fiction's capacities for immersing readers in imaginatively conceived 'real' places. By layering a map of Edinburgh - that will form the basis of the Rankin StoryTrek - with historical photographs and maps and critical commentary, users will also gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the city's past and present and the novel's complex thematisation of this relationship. The direct benefit of the prototype will be captured and measured via feedback from users and this feedback will be used to amend and tweak the StoryTrek.
The Rankin StoryTrek is built upon a well-defined demand, whereby Rankin's significance to Edinburgh's tourist industry and infrastructure has been established. The prototype has the potential to develop this demand, to the benefit of literary tourism in Edinburgh, while at the same time giving Rankin's publisher, Orion, an innovative platform to promote the work of one of their most famous authors. This pathway to impact will be further underscored by the involvement of Orion as project partner, insofar as the Group Rights, Audio and Digital Director the Digital Development and Technical Director at Orion have committed to help market-test and publicise the project using their extensive email/user-group lists and to include it as part of a larger celebration of 'Rebus at 30' to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the first Rebus novel (2017).
Another beneficiary will be the StoryTrek designer who, as a result of this project, will be able to assess how well the software system can deliver a location-and-movement story of Set in Darkness's level of narrative sophistication and complexity. This will be the first time that an entire novel has been adapted for this purpose. StoryTrek as a brand will greatly benefit from the exposure resulting from the collaboration with a major global publisher - and this will, in turn, help in the longer-term ambition to turn StoryTrek into an open source (i.e. non-proprietorial) software system.
The Rankin StoryTrek authoring tool and reading client can be downloaded, free of charge, from a dedicated website housed in the Hyperlab at Carleton University and with links to it from Orion's corporate website. This will allow users to use their preferred devices.
One important outcome of the project is to 'prove' that the concept works and if it does, project partners are keen to explore whether it can be commercialised (i.e. whether users would be willing to pay for the product) and investigations, to this end, will take place at the end of the funding period. This pathway to impact will be further strengthened by a briefing meeting to be held at Hachette UK headquarters in London, the country's largest publishing group comprising Headline, Hodder & Stoughton, Quercus, Little Brown, and Orion. This will give the project team and partners the chance to think about the successes and limitations of the prototype and to discuss their sustainability in the long term, and to think about further collaborations involving new writers and new locations.
| Description | ***we have provided login details for reviewers to check the progress of the award's main deliverable/output - see below*** The end of the grant period in April 2019 saw the successful realisation of the project's key stated output, the adaptation of Ian Rankin's Set in Darkness, a bestselling crime novel, for location-based mobile media or "locative" media. The completed "Trailing Rebus" web-based app has been the fruition of a two-year collaboration between Queen's University Belfast (where Pepper, the PI is based), Orion Publishing (project partner, who licenced the audiobook of Set in Darkness to the project), Rankin and Carleton University in Canada where the app was built under the guidance of International Co-I Prof Brian Greenspan. Designed using the StoryTrek platform, the Trailing Rebus app aligns the user's physical location in and movement through the spaces of Edinburgh, via their GPS-enabled smartphones, with story segments adapted from the Set in Darkness audiobook, which are automatically triggered when users enter particular zones along a designated route. What this means is that users can follow Inspector Rebus's unfolding story in situ via their smartphones (and using earphones!) by moving through the spaces of Edinburgh where the story takes place. One of the project's central objectives was to "prove the concept" - whether it would be possible to adapt an entire novel and deal with the attendant practical, editorial and technical problems and issues that such a task would inevitably produce - and now that the app has been built and tested (and re-tested countless times following revisions to the story, route etc.), we believe that the concept has been proved. While there are many literary tourism apps already in existence or under construction, which take users to particular locations relevant to a particular writer or genre or novel, our project and the now-completed "Trailing Rebus" app is the first anywhere in the world to successfully adapt an entire novel for this purpose. The challenges have been considerable, both on the technical and editorial side: how to speed up the delivery of sound files to users' smartphones by using 'local' servers or how to take a fourteen-hour audiobook where Rebus zig-zags back and forth across the city and wider area multiple times and turn it into a linear route or walk that a reasonably fit person could attempt in 4-5 hours, with breaks. All of this has required innovative solutions, anchoring the trek or walk to twenty key locations that play a significant role in the unfolding story. Additional content in the form of original and archive photographs have been layered onto the story to deepen the reader's immersive experience, and to reveal how past and present intersect dialectically in Rankin's novel. Users of the app begin their quest at the site of the 'new' Scottish Parliament which is a construction site in the story, set in 1999, but through narrative descriptions and archive photographs, they are given valuable insights into the juxtaposition of past and present inherent to both the site and the story. As such we show how crime fiction can help to unravel the hidden histories of the city and structure how we experience and attempt to make sense of our urban environments. Overall, the application is built to robust enterprise standards. It is platform-agnostic: works with Android, iOS, desktops; Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Dolphin, etc. It is lightweight, it does not require large amounts of data storage and it streams media assets to adjust to an individual user's location & bit rate for a seamless experience. It is extensible with most other web services, so in theory we can incorporate new features into every story as needed and in Admin mode, we can see where in the world a user logged in from, which zones they completed, when they used it, how long it took them, how far they got in the story, if they finished or switched to the Remote version at any point. We are keen for reviewers at the AHRC to see evidence of this successful realisation of the award's main objective. Therefore we have made the test site available to reviewers - though for obvious reasons only the 'remote player' feature will work (using PCs, laptops, tablets and phones) unless reviewers are able to travel to Edinburgh to site-test the main player (whereby a fully charged smartphone would be required). Enter the following web-address: https://carleton.ca/hyperlab/storytrek You will then be asked for a password and should enter: NewTrek20 Then click on the only visible url link: https://kazimirstubitsch.com/dev2/storytrek/main.php This will take your to the main login page. Your email address is: ahrc@storytrek.ca Your password is: ahrc2020 The Trailing Rebus app should be fully visible to reviewers at this point. |
| Exploitation Route | One of the other stated outcomes or 'deliverables' of the project was a final meeting involving figures from Orion Publishing and the project team. This took place on Tues 16 July 2019 at Hachette UK Head Office in London and involved Pepper, as PI and Greenspan as Int Co-I (via Skype), Richard King (Senior Rights Manager), Emad Akhtar (Publisher) and representatives from Marketing. At the meeting Orion representatives were impressed by and enthusiastic about the project's outcome, the app, which was demonstrated via a 'remote test' feature (allowing for non-Edinburgh based users to follow the story and sound files remotely). At the meeting it was agreed that site-testing involving Rankin's readers should be undertaken as soon Rankin himself had been shown the app and had given his approval, which was required under the terms of the project contract drawn up by QUB, Orion and Carleton. This meeting took place on Tues 30 July 2019 in Edinburgh and involved Rankin and Pepper, with Rankin enthusiastically offering his support and endorsement. During further site-tests on this visit to Edinburgh, which also involved Co-I Jeannerod, it was decided that further revisions to the route and story were required to streamline the experience for users and these were operationalised by the project team in Carleton including Greenspan as International Co-I, Sarah Thorne as user experience designer and Kazimir Stubitsch as technical designer. This updated version was then site-tested by Pepper on 18-19 November 2019 and further amendments were processed in Ottawa. Rather than approach Rankin's Edinburgh-based fans in the winter months to take part in further site-tests, it was decided to carry these out in spring 2020 and these will now take place in May/June 2020. This will be the first time that ordinary members of the public will undertake the trek and their feedback will be invaluable in determining when and how a wider public launch will take place. A further meeting involving project investigators and a larger constituency of interests in the Hachette Group (beyond just Orion) has been scheduled for 2020-21 to discuss whether there might be scope to develop this prototype with regards to other possible applications (e.g. other novels etc.). At the same time that the app is market tested by Rankin's fans, the project team will invite representatives from Visit Scotland to assess the app's likely appeal to tourists to Edinburgh. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | New information, March 2023. I was able to begin user testing of the Tailing Rebus app in May 2022 which I initiated using Twitter and help from Ian Rankin to promote the interactive story / walking experience to his Edinburgh based readers. (@TailingRebus). We had 20 sign-ups. Unfortunately at this point my partner (of 21 years) became ill and was hospitalised at the end of May / start of June for a six week period, whereupon she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. At this point I made the decision to abandon all testing for this app and focus on her treatment and looking after our twelve year old children. My partner's treatment - eight rounds of chemotherapy - lasted until the end of the year. Thankfully the cancer is now in remission and I will be able to resume testing in the spring window, starting in April 2023. New information, March 2022. CONTINUING DISRUPTION DUE TO COVID. My plan had been to conduct site testing of the Trailing Rebus app in Edinburgh with Ian Rankin readers in the summer but ongoing pandemic uncertainties regarding travel and user safety meant this was delayed until the autumn. I was able to make a visit to Edinburgh in early September, to check that the app was in order and that the walking route around the city was still viable. With everything working well, I was assured that immediate site testing involving members of the public would be possible but continuing high infection rates especially in Scotland made it necessary to delay again - at which point the Omicron variant appeared and we decided to put off testing until the spring. In order to update/develop the operational features of the app I made a successful application to QUB's Faculty Research Initiative Fund for £1000 in June 2021. This money was subsequently used to pay a professional IT developer, Kazimir Stubitsch (https://kazimirstubitsch.com), based in Ontario, Canada. He undertook the app construction work for the original project on a sub-contract basis organised by Prof Greenspan (Carleton), the International Co-I, and hence knows all aspects of the project and the app. Specially we undertook the following: • updated code to ensure security compliance and API interoperability • ported code to new virtual location (this was essential as the web-based app had, until this point, been housed on Stubitsch's personal webpage). • creation and management of accounts for test-users (for Spring 2022) • live on-call trouble-shooting during user tests (for Spring 2022) • server space rental and maintenance Everything is now in place to begin testing and our plan is to do so after Easter. Potential users will be alerted to the Trailing Rebus app with the help of Ian Rankin (who is fully supportive of the project), Orion publishers and by efforts to promote it via local radio. Users will be directed first of all to the following web address: https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/ael/Research/ResearchinEnglish/ResearchProjectsinEnglish/TAILINGREBUS/ This will give them the basic information they need. There, they will be able to access more detailed/practical information about how to prepare for the trek experience and what to do when they get to the start point: https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/ael/Research/ResearchinEnglish/FileUpload/Filetoupload,1192718,en.pdf . They will also have to get in touch with me, via email, for their unique login details. This way I will know who and how many testers we have and I will be able to get in touch with them, directly, to solicit their feedback - which will in turn influence what we do next and whether we're able to launch the product in any official capacity, with the help of Orion. As I reported last year, we would expect to have more impact evidence to report by March 2023 by which time the first market-testing involving Ian Rankin's readers will have been completed. New information, March 2021. MAJOR COVID DISRUPTION The new stage of this project was due to commence in March/April 2020 and continue throughout the rest of the year - site testing of the Ian Rankin/Set in Darkness app involving Rankin's Edinburgh based readers and other live users. Unfortunately none of this work could be done, due to disruptions and lockdowns caused by COVID-19. We were hoping to commence some site testing in the early autumn, but further restrictions meant this was not feasible. Since we would have been working with members of the public, we felt it necessary to be cautious and to pay due attention to both national restrictions and those in operation in Edinburgh. Our hope is to re-commence site testing in the late spring or early summer 2021, as restrictions and lockdown measures are gradually eased. The project's non-academic impact to date has been limited by delays, outlined in the previous section, to the construction and market-testing of the Trailing Rebus app and we will only be able to properly gauge this impact once the app has been used by ordinary members of the public who will then be asked for their feedback (which will in turn become part of our impact evidence). To date, then, the only real contribution this award has made to non-academic impact has been in our dealings with Orion Publishing in the form of regular email communications and a post-completion meeting at Orion's London HQ on Tues 16 July involving Pepper, as PI and Greenspan as Int Co-I (via Skype), Richard King (Senior Rights Manager), Emad Akhtar (Publisher) and representatives from Marketing. At this meeting we were able to demonstrate the viability of the app and hence "prove the concept" and to push figures at Orion to consider how the concept might be developed in other contexts and in relation to other writers and other novels. We would expect to have more impact evidence to report by March 2021 by which time the first market-testing involving Ian Rankin's readers will have been completed. |
| Sector | Creative Economy |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Economic |
| Description | Conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation entitled "Tailing Rebus: Adapting a Best-Selling Detective Novel for Locative Mobile Media" at an international conference that brought together academics and industry partners to discuss areas of shared interests. 40 people attended the panel where I presented the findings of my research and detailed question and answers followed the presentation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.en.cgs.aau.dk/research/conferences/euronoir/programme/ |
| Description | Keynote lecture entitled 'Crime Fiction Goes Digital' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote lecture given by Andrew Pepper (PI) on the project (aims, outcomes) delivered at international conference entitled 'Murder, She Tweeted: Crime Narratives and the Digital Age' at the University of Tampere, Finland, 23-24 August 2018. The lecture and subsequent discussion provoked useful debate about the nature of the user experience on the Ian Rankin StoryTrek and the challenges of reconciling the narrative demands of Rankin's novel with the desire of end-users to curate or take charge of their own experience. This helped the project reformulate their approach to the user's experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://research.uta.fi/plural-en/murder-she-tweeted/ |
| Description | Presentation at academic conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation by Brian Greenspan (Int Co-I) and Sarah Thorne (research assistant) entitled 'Trailing Rebus: Adapting a Best-Selling Detective Novel for Locative Mobile Media' at ELO (Electronic Literature Organisation) in Montreal, 15 Aug 2018. The presentation and subsequent discussion helped project partners to rethink their approach to some of the technical aspects (e.g. coding, building) of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://sites.grenadine.uqam.ca/sites/nt2/en/elo2018 |