Invisible Worlds: Place-Making, Augmented Reality, and Alderley Edge
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: Department of English Literature
Abstract
Invisible Worlds brings together digital and creative responses to explore contemporary and historical place-making strategies, drawing on the opportunities offered by Augmented Reality (AR). An academic collaboration with the National Trust, it takes as its focus Alderley Edge, an outdoor (non-built) heritage site in North-East Cheshire, above a network of Bronze and Roman Age mines. Alderley Edge has a long and rich legendary history, which is, however, largely invisible to the majority of visitors to the site today.
The project is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, the Institute of Historical Research, London, and the Department of Media Studies at the University of Lincoln; as well as creative practitioners working with visual media, soundscapes and storytelling. It has been developed through a series of scoping meetings from May 2018 to April 2019 with the National Trust, in direct response to urgent challenges identified by the Trust. It also builds on established relationships with key stakeholders in the Edge and its legend, including the author Alan Garner, the Cheshire educational and heritage charity, the Blacken Trust (founded by Alan and Griselda Garner), and Derbyshire Caving Club, who manage the mines at Alderley Edge under license from the National Trust.
A digital humanities project engaged with the relationship between contemporary experiences of place and medieval legendary narratives, Invisible Worlds charts a new course in Medieval Studies, the Digital Humanities, and Heritage. It offers a new model for the study of trans-historical place-making, approaching the ways in which long histories of place interact with contemporary experiences of lived space.
Invisible Worlds takes as its focus the legend of Alderley Edge: a subterranean chamber of sleeping heroes, beneath the site, who will awaken at a time of national crisis. In long-lived regional circulation, the modern legend has affinities to medieval sources which have informed later medievalist practices associated with the site, including its treatment in the novels of Alan Garner. Garner has advised on the development of the project, and is a key member of the project's advisory board.
The project will make the subterranean legend of the Edge accessible through an AR resource, using immersive 3D software, Unity 3D (accessed via smart phone or tablet). The resource localises commissioned artistic responses to long historical and contemporary versions of the legend in 3D representations of the mines beneath the site, viewed from above ground. It will also be accessible remotely, through the project website, hosted at the University of Birmingham.
The experience of the Edge as lived place, as much as a site of historical importance, is fundamental to Invisible Worlds. A public survey, inviting new responses to the legend of the Edge, will be integrated within the AR resource and website. This is positioned within the project as the latest chapter in the long history of legendary place-making, and forms the grounds of a new public history of the Edge, written by users of the resource rather than for them.
Invisible Worlds has been developed as a case study, with extensible potential across heritage sites and organisations. It engages with the capacity of AR for the representation and analysis of imagined worlds, overlaid upon the geographical real, as a vital component in communicating new dynamic histories of non-built heritage, or sites with invisible, legendary or difficult histories. At Alderley Edge, the project will facilitate a new type of visitor experience and engagement, centring its legendary position and its cultural significance.
The project is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, the Institute of Historical Research, London, and the Department of Media Studies at the University of Lincoln; as well as creative practitioners working with visual media, soundscapes and storytelling. It has been developed through a series of scoping meetings from May 2018 to April 2019 with the National Trust, in direct response to urgent challenges identified by the Trust. It also builds on established relationships with key stakeholders in the Edge and its legend, including the author Alan Garner, the Cheshire educational and heritage charity, the Blacken Trust (founded by Alan and Griselda Garner), and Derbyshire Caving Club, who manage the mines at Alderley Edge under license from the National Trust.
A digital humanities project engaged with the relationship between contemporary experiences of place and medieval legendary narratives, Invisible Worlds charts a new course in Medieval Studies, the Digital Humanities, and Heritage. It offers a new model for the study of trans-historical place-making, approaching the ways in which long histories of place interact with contemporary experiences of lived space.
Invisible Worlds takes as its focus the legend of Alderley Edge: a subterranean chamber of sleeping heroes, beneath the site, who will awaken at a time of national crisis. In long-lived regional circulation, the modern legend has affinities to medieval sources which have informed later medievalist practices associated with the site, including its treatment in the novels of Alan Garner. Garner has advised on the development of the project, and is a key member of the project's advisory board.
The project will make the subterranean legend of the Edge accessible through an AR resource, using immersive 3D software, Unity 3D (accessed via smart phone or tablet). The resource localises commissioned artistic responses to long historical and contemporary versions of the legend in 3D representations of the mines beneath the site, viewed from above ground. It will also be accessible remotely, through the project website, hosted at the University of Birmingham.
The experience of the Edge as lived place, as much as a site of historical importance, is fundamental to Invisible Worlds. A public survey, inviting new responses to the legend of the Edge, will be integrated within the AR resource and website. This is positioned within the project as the latest chapter in the long history of legendary place-making, and forms the grounds of a new public history of the Edge, written by users of the resource rather than for them.
Invisible Worlds has been developed as a case study, with extensible potential across heritage sites and organisations. It engages with the capacity of AR for the representation and analysis of imagined worlds, overlaid upon the geographical real, as a vital component in communicating new dynamic histories of non-built heritage, or sites with invisible, legendary or difficult histories. At Alderley Edge, the project will facilitate a new type of visitor experience and engagement, centring its legendary position and its cultural significance.
Planned Impact
The impact of Invisible Worlds is understood in relation to the following beneficiaries:
1. The National Trust
Invisible Worlds responds to urgent challenges identified by the National Trust at Alderley Edge. It has been developed closely with the National Trust as a case study for the North Outdoors Programming and Interpretation steering group, in terms of the use of digital technology to enhance interpretation in LON (Land, Outdoors and Nature; i.e. non-built) spaces. A SWOT analysis has been undertaken in support of the project, which confirms the findings of an earlier independent SWOT analysis carried out in 2016 (Prag 2016).
The project models the uses of AR, and artistic and academic partnerships, to:
(1) actively change visitor understanding and behaviour;
(2) support conservation policies (the AR trail will direct footfall away from the most eroded areas of the site);
(3) represent histories which fall outside familiar interpretative models.
(4) measure public engagement, via the survey integrated into the resource and website. This will allow the National Trust, and investigators, to trace shifts in the nature of public engagement with, and understanding of, the site, from the start to the end of the project. This will be in addition to evaluation activity supported by the National Trust, detailed further in the Pathways to Impact document.
2. Visitors to Alderley Edge
The project is designed to deepen and enrich public understanding of the cultural relevance of Alderley Edge, and its historic importance, tracked through public engagement and evaluative activities, outlined in Pathways to Impact. The AR resource and project website will continue to be accessible to visitors to the site beyond the duration of the project. In addition to changing visitor behaviours, the project has the potential to extend Heritage participation through a cultural partnership with the Blackden Trust, who will integrate the AR resource within their existing schools programme. The project will also draw on the recommendations of the Blackden Trust in the inclusion of schools' groups in the testing and development of the AR resource, ensuring that the educational utility of the resource is a significant component of its design.
3. Additional cultural partners
The project has significant implications, and applications, for our project partners beyond the National Trust: for the Blackden Trust, who will be able to draw on the AR resource for their educational programme, as part of their broader commitment to preserving and articulating the legend of the Edge as a vital part of Cheshire's cultural heritage; and for the Derbyshire Caving Club, who will be able to utilise the 3D imaging of the mines captured for the AR resource, with the potential for further reaching public interest in the organisation.
4. Heritage professionals
Invisible Worlds has the potential to inform broader practice across the heritage sector in the interpretation of non-built heritage and the uses of AR as an interactive interpretive, and publicly engaged, mode of representation and analysis. Invisible Worlds has been identified as a National Trust case study, with potential for broader impact not only across the Trust but the Heritage sector. The transferrable methodologies pursued here are applicable to other sites, and the current project is a pilot study for further collaborations with historic trusts and sites of legendary-historical importance. Although the interests of the project are explicitly medieval and medievalist, the methodologies employed are applicable to sites at which we find obscured or erased histories from other periods. Dialogue with heritage professionals beyond the National Trust will be facilitated through a symposium held at the Institute of Historical Research at the conclusion of the project, drawing on the established relationships of project Co-Is with English Heritage and Cadw.
1. The National Trust
Invisible Worlds responds to urgent challenges identified by the National Trust at Alderley Edge. It has been developed closely with the National Trust as a case study for the North Outdoors Programming and Interpretation steering group, in terms of the use of digital technology to enhance interpretation in LON (Land, Outdoors and Nature; i.e. non-built) spaces. A SWOT analysis has been undertaken in support of the project, which confirms the findings of an earlier independent SWOT analysis carried out in 2016 (Prag 2016).
The project models the uses of AR, and artistic and academic partnerships, to:
(1) actively change visitor understanding and behaviour;
(2) support conservation policies (the AR trail will direct footfall away from the most eroded areas of the site);
(3) represent histories which fall outside familiar interpretative models.
(4) measure public engagement, via the survey integrated into the resource and website. This will allow the National Trust, and investigators, to trace shifts in the nature of public engagement with, and understanding of, the site, from the start to the end of the project. This will be in addition to evaluation activity supported by the National Trust, detailed further in the Pathways to Impact document.
2. Visitors to Alderley Edge
The project is designed to deepen and enrich public understanding of the cultural relevance of Alderley Edge, and its historic importance, tracked through public engagement and evaluative activities, outlined in Pathways to Impact. The AR resource and project website will continue to be accessible to visitors to the site beyond the duration of the project. In addition to changing visitor behaviours, the project has the potential to extend Heritage participation through a cultural partnership with the Blackden Trust, who will integrate the AR resource within their existing schools programme. The project will also draw on the recommendations of the Blackden Trust in the inclusion of schools' groups in the testing and development of the AR resource, ensuring that the educational utility of the resource is a significant component of its design.
3. Additional cultural partners
The project has significant implications, and applications, for our project partners beyond the National Trust: for the Blackden Trust, who will be able to draw on the AR resource for their educational programme, as part of their broader commitment to preserving and articulating the legend of the Edge as a vital part of Cheshire's cultural heritage; and for the Derbyshire Caving Club, who will be able to utilise the 3D imaging of the mines captured for the AR resource, with the potential for further reaching public interest in the organisation.
4. Heritage professionals
Invisible Worlds has the potential to inform broader practice across the heritage sector in the interpretation of non-built heritage and the uses of AR as an interactive interpretive, and publicly engaged, mode of representation and analysis. Invisible Worlds has been identified as a National Trust case study, with potential for broader impact not only across the Trust but the Heritage sector. The transferrable methodologies pursued here are applicable to other sites, and the current project is a pilot study for further collaborations with historic trusts and sites of legendary-historical importance. Although the interests of the project are explicitly medieval and medievalist, the methodologies employed are applicable to sites at which we find obscured or erased histories from other periods. Dialogue with heritage professionals beyond the National Trust will be facilitated through a symposium held at the Institute of Historical Research at the conclusion of the project, drawing on the established relationships of project Co-Is with English Heritage and Cadw.
Title | Creative Commissions produced on-site at Alderley Edge |
Description | Three creative commissions were produced on site at Alderley Edge in Sept 2021, directly responsive to the landscape of the Edge and the versions of the legend collected in focus groups with local stakeholders and via the response feature on the project website. These are currently being integrated into the project's AR resources (for use both on-site and remotely) by our technical team, and will also be released as a stand alone set of remote on-site performances in May 2022, prior to the launch of the AR resource in June 2022. |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Impact | Nayan Kulkarni, one of our creative practitioners, has continued to develop his compositional practice, first explored in the context of his artistic engagement with Alderley Edge and the ideas first encountered in the context of Invisible Worlds. Details of the direct impact here, provided by Nayan, are as follows: Direct outcome: ACE 'Developing your creative Practice Award" DYCP-00470614-R11. The work I started at Alderley has directly informed my approach to an experimental collaborative sound/music developmental project. Supported through a program of mentoring with artist Simon Grennan and composer Gabriel Prokofiev, I am currently exploring new live and recorded modes of spatial sound works exploring place, body and temporal subjectivity. The Waterfall Wood sketch is acting as the touch stone for this ongoing work. The experience I had with the work I made in Alderley has opened up a much richer way for me to develop artworks with sound and space, always with a specific place in mind. Indirect outcome: I am also realising a new permanent installation in Dalby Forest - 'Singing Room'. Although quite a different project from Alderley Edge, the thoughts and processes I tested there are informing a more open melodic approach to the layering in that artwork. Once again, sense of place and how the audience can be supported in a different kind of journey are crucial to its success. Technical development: I am using the provisional score for Waterfall Wood as a means to learn new spatial sound compositional techniques. Even in the industry this is a new paradigm in live sound production and is now been explored by experimental composers and artists when they can get access to the equipment. In turn this is opening up some new collaborative ventures. |
Description | While we will not have final data until June 2023, we have seen a trend following the launch of the Invisible Worlds app in January 2023 -- increased public participation with the legendary contexts of Alderley Edge through the immersive experience of the reality app, but a preference for submitting individual responses and contributions to the legend remotely (once off site/ off the app) via the project's other reporting mechanism (the project website). Our early sense, when exploring transferability here, is the importance of the provision of a separate reporting tool, outside the immersive experience itself. |
Exploitation Route | This has significant practical implications for the uses of apps creating immersive experiences as public response/narrative tools - these must necessarily operation in the context of a wider public-facing research infrastructure with multiple opportunities for public reporting. |
Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Title | Invisible Worlds' augmented reality app |
Description | Invisible Worlds' augmented reality app was released in Jan 2023 as a tool for collecting personal responses to and narratives of Alderley Edge and its legendary history. An immersive experience, which offers either a remote or on-site tour through sites of legendary interest at Alderley Edge, with augmented reality visualisations and specially commissioned soundscapes. |
Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
Year Produced | 2023 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The app has not been launched for long enough for us to detail extensive impact (we would hope this would be the case by the next Research Fish submission), but we have seen 250 downloads, and anticipate - given the local significant of the site - a high quality rather than quantity of engagement (while transferable, this is after all a local oral history tool). The app has been embraced by the immediate community, and Alderley Edge Station volunteers' group have requested signs advertising the app for the station, while the local Alderley Edge History Group are similarly acting as ambassadors for the app. |
URL | https://www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk/app |
Description | Collaborations with Key Heritage Partners |
Organisation | Blackden Trust |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | The project team continues to work with key cultural partners, who we have provided with digital resources (a digital scan of the mines at Alderley Edge), and with whom we continue to collaborate as we produce the AR resource, a resource intended for use by all three heritage organisations. |
Collaborator Contribution | Cultural partners have advised on aspects of the legend for the public-facing web resource now accessible; have advertised current and future public engagement activities through their own channels; have advised on key locations at Alderley Edge to be included in the AR resource; have advised on schools participation for user-testing stage of AR resource. The National Trust have also advised on the accessibility and safety of locations to be included in the resource, with a mind also to conservation issues. |
Impact | Project website: www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk. Monograph on the legend (co-authored by PI and Co-Is), Invisible Worlds: Alderley Edge, Placemaking, and Augmented Reality, has been contracted by Liverpool University Press for publication in 2024. The monograph, like the project, is interdisciplinary, exploring i) pre-modern legends and placemaking strategies; ii) heritage interpretation and community response; iii) creative practice; iv) digital intervention. |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Collaborations with Key Heritage Partners |
Organisation | Derbyshire Caving Club Limited |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | The project team continues to work with key cultural partners, who we have provided with digital resources (a digital scan of the mines at Alderley Edge), and with whom we continue to collaborate as we produce the AR resource, a resource intended for use by all three heritage organisations. |
Collaborator Contribution | Cultural partners have advised on aspects of the legend for the public-facing web resource now accessible; have advertised current and future public engagement activities through their own channels; have advised on key locations at Alderley Edge to be included in the AR resource; have advised on schools participation for user-testing stage of AR resource. The National Trust have also advised on the accessibility and safety of locations to be included in the resource, with a mind also to conservation issues. |
Impact | Project website: www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk. Monograph on the legend (co-authored by PI and Co-Is), Invisible Worlds: Alderley Edge, Placemaking, and Augmented Reality, has been contracted by Liverpool University Press for publication in 2024. The monograph, like the project, is interdisciplinary, exploring i) pre-modern legends and placemaking strategies; ii) heritage interpretation and community response; iii) creative practice; iv) digital intervention. |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Collaborations with Key Heritage Partners |
Organisation | National Trust |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | The project team continues to work with key cultural partners, who we have provided with digital resources (a digital scan of the mines at Alderley Edge), and with whom we continue to collaborate as we produce the AR resource, a resource intended for use by all three heritage organisations. |
Collaborator Contribution | Cultural partners have advised on aspects of the legend for the public-facing web resource now accessible; have advertised current and future public engagement activities through their own channels; have advised on key locations at Alderley Edge to be included in the AR resource; have advised on schools participation for user-testing stage of AR resource. The National Trust have also advised on the accessibility and safety of locations to be included in the resource, with a mind also to conservation issues. |
Impact | Project website: www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk. Monograph on the legend (co-authored by PI and Co-Is), Invisible Worlds: Alderley Edge, Placemaking, and Augmented Reality, has been contracted by Liverpool University Press for publication in 2024. The monograph, like the project, is interdisciplinary, exploring i) pre-modern legends and placemaking strategies; ii) heritage interpretation and community response; iii) creative practice; iv) digital intervention. |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Creative Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | In April 2021 local stakeholders (responding to an open CFP) were invited to an online creative workshop to produce and share their own versions of the legend of the Edge. The workshop was led by authors Beth Underdown and Thomas Lee, and was organised in response to presented stimulus, including images of the Edge. Selected, and anonymised material from the transcription was shared with the creative teams producing material for the AR resource, and on the project archive (link below). Participants in the workshop have followed up with the project team and have been invited to act as ambassadors for the use of the app following its launch in June 2022, and will be among the first user-testing group in May 2022. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk/project-archive |
Description | Jodrell Bank Observatory - Blackden Trust lecture |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Lecture hosted by the Blackden Trust, partner in the Invisible Worlds project, at Jodrell Bank Observatory in March 2023 - sharing initial findings. Advertisement of lecture alone has resulted in increased participation in the app from local stakeholders and public support for follow-on funding. Full statistical breakdown of app engagement will be available at the next Research Fish report, as this activity is forthcoming. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/worlds-above-and-below-the-invisible-heritage-of-alderley-edge-ticket... |
Description | Local press coverage |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | We saw local and regional press coverage in December 2022 immediately prior to the launch of the app, which sparked visits to the website, online discussion, and app downloads. https://www.alderleyedge.com/news/article/22917/new-app-to-bring-legend-of-alderley-edge-to-life https://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/22918/new-app-to-bring-legend-of-alderley-edge-to-life https://www.visitcheshire.com/ideas-and-inspiration/blog/read/2022/12/new-app-adds-touch-of-magic-to-winter-walk-at-alderley-edge-b1404 https://ukdaily.news/manchester/new-app-brings-legend-of-alderley-edge-to-life-with-wizards-knights-and-horses-121618.html https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/new-app-brings-legend-of-alderley-edge-to-life-with-wizards-knights-and-horses/ |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
Description | National Trust Magazine Article |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Overview of Invisible Worlds project and call for further participation in the National Trusts' magazine. Publication March 2023, so full impact as yet unknown although we expect its reach to be significant. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Placemaking workshops (Birmingham & University of Western Australia) |
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 | Two workshops run by the project in Spring and Summer 2023 - one at the University of Birmingham, and one at the University of Western Australia, exploring the relationship between placemaking and creative response beyond the immediate constituencies involved in Invisible Worlds (i.e. the population around Alderley Edge), including academics and practitioners engaged with Heritage in two very different cultural and physical environments. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk/workshop-responses |
Description | Project website, with public response element |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The project website for Invisible Worlds, which incorporates a public response element, was launched on 4th March 2021. We cannot yet quantify impact (beyond increased public engagement) but will be able to do so following the launch of the AR resource in June 2022, which allows for the measure of both quantitative and qualitative change in behaviours at, and in relation to, Alderley Edge. The website currently has 15 published personal responses to the legend of the Edge, and we are seeing positive community involvement in the project via the website, focus groups, social media, and requests for further participation, which has led to the establishment of local ambassadors for the project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
URL | http://www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk |
Description | Public lecture - London Fortean Society |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Public lecture on project and its initial public responses following invitations by the London Fortean Society. Resulting increase in website traffic and queries as to whether the project's geographical/ legendary focus will eventually reach beyond Alderley Edge to other sites with similarly invisible legendary heritage. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.conwayhall.org.uk/on-demand/the-haunted-landscape-v/ |
Description | Reflection workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | In July 2021 PI Dr Victoria Flood ran a workshop with the Alderley History Group. The primary aim of the workshop was to invite open reflection from this specific group of local stakeholders on their relationship to Alderley Edge and its legend. Selected, and anonymised material from the transcription was shared with the creative teams producing material from the AR resource, and on the project archive (link below). Participants in the workshop have followed up with the project team and have been invited to act as ambassadors for the use of the app following its launch in June 2022, and will be among the first user-testing group in May 2022. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.invisibleworlds.ac.uk/project-archive |