Documentation

Documentation provides an important resource, accompanying, or even standing in for, an immersive media (XR) experience as it ages. As a starting point for documenting an XR experience, the following prompts may be useful:

• Recording key information gained during initial assessment of the characteristics of an XR experience e.g. using the templates on this page.

• Creating video documentation of XR content using video recording tools.

  • What is the user experience like?

• Creating or recording personal narratives/accounts of works (i.e. oral histories).

  • From whose perspectives are these recorded? e.g.

    • User/viewer

    • Artist/creator and their technical/development collaborators

  • Professional/neutral or personal tone?

• Could your documentation become 'documentation as preservation'?

  • Documentation created while the experience is accessible can become a useful preservation pathway later, by transmitting some understanding of the original experience.

  • How do you measure the success of your documentation? e.g. completeness, multiplicity, accuracy...

• Consider outside-in and inside-out perspectives on documentation - see sasha arden's paper referenced below for more info:

  • "An outside-in approach takes the technical characteristics of hardware and software as its starting point, where the material properties determine how content is rendered and experienced."

  • "By contrast, an inside-out approach is user-centered, where experience of the content reveals significant properties that guide decisions as to how content is rendered."

Templates

Acquisition Information Templates

These documents were designed to guide information gathering and discussion during the early stages of the acquisition of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) artworks, primarily with conservation and long-term preservation in mind. They are designed to be completed by or in close collaboration with an artist prior to receiving media from the artist.

AR Templates

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Template_Pre-Acquisition Questionnaire for Augmented Reality (AR) App-Based Artworks_Rowe_Version 1.1_2022.pdf

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Template_Pre-Acquisition Questionnaire for Augmented Reality (AR) App-Based Artworks_Rowe_Version 1.1_2022.docx

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VR Templates

• Version 1 (March 2019) developed by Jack McConchie and Tom Ensom during Tate's Preserving Immersive Media project:

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tate_pim_vracqtemplate_01_00.docx

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• Version 2 (May 2019) developed as an extension of this template by Savannah Campbell and Mark Hellar:

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Virtual Reality Artwork Acquisition Template.docx

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Publications

Augmenting Our Approach to Preservation: Documentation of Experience for Immersive Media

Written by sasha arden during their 2021–22 graduate internship at Tate, this paper considers the experiential dimension of immersive media (IM) and its significant role in preservation and future access.

PDF available via Tate website: https://www.tate.org.uk/documents/1793/Augmenting_Our_Approach_to_Preservation.pdf

Documentation Infographic for artists and makers

The infographic was created by Lieve Baetens in 2023, and provides artists and makers information about the importance of documenting their work. The infographic answers questions about why it is important for artists and makers to document their work and how they can document their own work.

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Infographic Documentation to the Rescue.pdf

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Text Infographic Documentation to the Rescue.docx

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