This is a pre-publication version of a book chapter published in: Hatchuel, D. and Vienne-Guerrin... more This is a pre-publication version of a book chapter published in: Hatchuel, D. and Vienne-Guerrin, N. (eds.
At the end of the 1950s both the eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976) and autho... more At the end of the 1950s both the eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976) and author and secret service veteran Sir Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972) presented film documentary series about ancient Greece for BBC Television. Although aspects of the classical world had been considered in earlier television programmes, Wheeler’s Armchair Voyage: Hellenic Cruise (BBC, 1958) and The Glory That Was Greece (BBC, 1959) with Mackenzie were the small screen’s earliest sustained engagements with the subject. This chapter outlines the precursors of and influences on Wheeler’s and Mackenzie’s series, exploring within a broad cultural frame the legacies of early modern travellers and of the Grand Tour, the development of sight-seeing and popular tourism from the eighteenth century onwards, representations of Greece in literature, painting and photography, technologies for virtual voyages, illustrated lectures and film travelogues as well as the mediation of travel by radio and early television. I argue that elements of each of these antecedents contributed to the formation of the two series, along with the public service understandings of the BBC’s mission, the social and educational aspirations of a post-war middle-class audience and the personal interests of the two presenters.
Art historian, collector, museum director and broadcaster, Kenneth Clark was one of the leading c... more Art historian, collector, museum director and broadcaster, Kenneth Clark was one of the leading cultural figures in Britain in the midtwentieth century. Accompanying a major exhibition, this book considers all aspects of his life and work, including his television career that climaxed in the landmark series 'Civilisation'. Particular emphasis is placed on Clark's support of, and influence upon, the art of his time. As director of the National Gallery he oversaw the relocation of the collection during the Second World War. He chaired the pioneering War Artists Advisory Committee, and persauded the government not to conscript artists - Henry Moore was one such artist who greatly benefited from Clark's support. After the war he resigned his directorship to concentrate on writing, in 1954 was co-founder of the broadcasting company that was to become ITV, and chaired the Arts Council from 1955 to 1960. A passionate advocate of art being made accessible to all, in 1969 Cla...
In this paper we describe and analyse the community building process for Ages of Avatar, a set of... more In this paper we describe and analyse the community building process for Ages of Avatar, a set of on-line Collaborative Virtual Environments created in Microsoft Virtual Worlds, which form part of an ongoing experiment in Inhabited Television, aiming to merge CVEs and broadcast media. We describe the means by which the CVEs were launched, promoted and supported alongside a television broadcast channel, and how actions of viewers acting as inhabitants in the CVE can be used to provide broadcast material. We explain how the world content and their superstructure were managed to encourage the growth of a community over a short period of time. Using logs of activities in the worlds we deduce some of the characteristics of the community which was formed.
Inhabited TV combines collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) with broadcast TV so that on-line... more Inhabited TV combines collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) with broadcast TV so that on-line audiences can participate in TV shows within shared virtual worlds Three early experiments with inhabited TV raised fundamental questions concerning the extent to which it is possible to establish fast-pace social interaction within a CVE and produce a coherent and engaging broadcast of this action This paper presents a fourth more recent experiment, Out of This World, that directly addressed these questions. We describe how the formulation of inhabited TV design principles, combined with the use of dedicated production software, for constraining and directing participants' actions and for controlling virtual cameras, enabled us to create a fastmoving and coherent show We conclude that our experiments to date demonstrate the technical feasibility of inhabited TV, but that greater attention needs to be paid to developing appropriate formats and content for this new medium before it becomes truly engaging We also suggest that our real time production and camera software may be useful in other areas of CSCW
This document forms Deliverable D7a.1 of the eRENA project of the i3 schema of the ESPRIT-IV rese... more This document forms Deliverable D7a.1 of the eRENA project of the i3 schema of the ESPRIT-IV research action of the European Communities. eRENA is concerned with the development of electronic arenas for culture, art, performance and entertainment in which the general citizen of the European Community might actively participate supported by advanced Information Technology (IT). Within this general context, the current deliverable reports on the project's first experiment in 'Inhabited Television' whereby Virtual Reality (VR) technology is deployed to enable the citizen to participate within broadcast TV. The document describes how, through an actual public demonstration, we were able to realise a popular format TV show within a multiuser virtual environment by paying special attention to the design of simple yet powerful interfaces for participants and viewers, together with novel camera control and event management software support for the production team. We have also subjected our work to extensive evaluation from a number of perspectives, both social scientific and technical. The results of these evaluations and their implications for work in the project and for more general research topics are described. In particular, it is emphasised how this deliverable is the product of international, crosspartner and cross-profession collaborations in the project and how the work within it has been able to lever new integration pathways within the project.
This chapter considers two early BBC television documentary series about ancient Greece and its l... more This chapter considers two early BBC television documentary series about ancient Greece and its legacy: Armchair Voyage: Hellenic Cruise (1958) written and presented by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and Sir Compton Mackenzie’s The Glory that was Greece (1959). Making use of archival documentation from the BBC Written Archives Centre, including audience research reports, the chapter details the network of influences on the series. It is argued that these series draw on earlier forms of encounters with and depictions of the sites of ancient Greece, including the Grand Tour, 19th-century photography, tourism, film travelogues and radio programming. In addition, the chapter details the ways in which these two series contributed centrally to establishing the fundamentals of the emerging form of the presenter-led documentary. This approach to documentary flourished a decade later in the BBC series Civilisation (1969), with Sir Kenneth Clark. Similar series centred on a journey with a presenter wh...
Exploration of the ways in which Henry Moore and his work was presented on television and in film... more Exploration of the ways in which Henry Moore and his work was presented on television and in film documentaries during his lifetime.
Following the unerthing of a cache of British TV plays in the US, John Wyver rediscovers a lost w... more Following the unerthing of a cache of British TV plays in the US, John Wyver rediscovers a lost world of 1950s and 60s studio drama
The audience in the main cinema of the Institute of Contemporary Arts on one evening in mid-Febru... more The audience in the main cinema of the Institute of Contemporary Arts on one evening in mid-February 1982 numbered just four. The screening was the first of a month-long season of television material and films linked to the highlypublicised Police series on BBC1, and ...
This is a pre-publication version of a book chapter published in: Hatchuel, D. and Vienne-Guerrin... more This is a pre-publication version of a book chapter published in: Hatchuel, D. and Vienne-Guerrin, N. (eds.
At the end of the 1950s both the eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976) and autho... more At the end of the 1950s both the eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976) and author and secret service veteran Sir Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972) presented film documentary series about ancient Greece for BBC Television. Although aspects of the classical world had been considered in earlier television programmes, Wheeler’s Armchair Voyage: Hellenic Cruise (BBC, 1958) and The Glory That Was Greece (BBC, 1959) with Mackenzie were the small screen’s earliest sustained engagements with the subject. This chapter outlines the precursors of and influences on Wheeler’s and Mackenzie’s series, exploring within a broad cultural frame the legacies of early modern travellers and of the Grand Tour, the development of sight-seeing and popular tourism from the eighteenth century onwards, representations of Greece in literature, painting and photography, technologies for virtual voyages, illustrated lectures and film travelogues as well as the mediation of travel by radio and early television. I argue that elements of each of these antecedents contributed to the formation of the two series, along with the public service understandings of the BBC’s mission, the social and educational aspirations of a post-war middle-class audience and the personal interests of the two presenters.
Art historian, collector, museum director and broadcaster, Kenneth Clark was one of the leading c... more Art historian, collector, museum director and broadcaster, Kenneth Clark was one of the leading cultural figures in Britain in the midtwentieth century. Accompanying a major exhibition, this book considers all aspects of his life and work, including his television career that climaxed in the landmark series 'Civilisation'. Particular emphasis is placed on Clark's support of, and influence upon, the art of his time. As director of the National Gallery he oversaw the relocation of the collection during the Second World War. He chaired the pioneering War Artists Advisory Committee, and persauded the government not to conscript artists - Henry Moore was one such artist who greatly benefited from Clark's support. After the war he resigned his directorship to concentrate on writing, in 1954 was co-founder of the broadcasting company that was to become ITV, and chaired the Arts Council from 1955 to 1960. A passionate advocate of art being made accessible to all, in 1969 Cla...
In this paper we describe and analyse the community building process for Ages of Avatar, a set of... more In this paper we describe and analyse the community building process for Ages of Avatar, a set of on-line Collaborative Virtual Environments created in Microsoft Virtual Worlds, which form part of an ongoing experiment in Inhabited Television, aiming to merge CVEs and broadcast media. We describe the means by which the CVEs were launched, promoted and supported alongside a television broadcast channel, and how actions of viewers acting as inhabitants in the CVE can be used to provide broadcast material. We explain how the world content and their superstructure were managed to encourage the growth of a community over a short period of time. Using logs of activities in the worlds we deduce some of the characteristics of the community which was formed.
Inhabited TV combines collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) with broadcast TV so that on-line... more Inhabited TV combines collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) with broadcast TV so that on-line audiences can participate in TV shows within shared virtual worlds Three early experiments with inhabited TV raised fundamental questions concerning the extent to which it is possible to establish fast-pace social interaction within a CVE and produce a coherent and engaging broadcast of this action This paper presents a fourth more recent experiment, Out of This World, that directly addressed these questions. We describe how the formulation of inhabited TV design principles, combined with the use of dedicated production software, for constraining and directing participants' actions and for controlling virtual cameras, enabled us to create a fastmoving and coherent show We conclude that our experiments to date demonstrate the technical feasibility of inhabited TV, but that greater attention needs to be paid to developing appropriate formats and content for this new medium before it becomes truly engaging We also suggest that our real time production and camera software may be useful in other areas of CSCW
This document forms Deliverable D7a.1 of the eRENA project of the i3 schema of the ESPRIT-IV rese... more This document forms Deliverable D7a.1 of the eRENA project of the i3 schema of the ESPRIT-IV research action of the European Communities. eRENA is concerned with the development of electronic arenas for culture, art, performance and entertainment in which the general citizen of the European Community might actively participate supported by advanced Information Technology (IT). Within this general context, the current deliverable reports on the project's first experiment in 'Inhabited Television' whereby Virtual Reality (VR) technology is deployed to enable the citizen to participate within broadcast TV. The document describes how, through an actual public demonstration, we were able to realise a popular format TV show within a multiuser virtual environment by paying special attention to the design of simple yet powerful interfaces for participants and viewers, together with novel camera control and event management software support for the production team. We have also subjected our work to extensive evaluation from a number of perspectives, both social scientific and technical. The results of these evaluations and their implications for work in the project and for more general research topics are described. In particular, it is emphasised how this deliverable is the product of international, crosspartner and cross-profession collaborations in the project and how the work within it has been able to lever new integration pathways within the project.
This chapter considers two early BBC television documentary series about ancient Greece and its l... more This chapter considers two early BBC television documentary series about ancient Greece and its legacy: Armchair Voyage: Hellenic Cruise (1958) written and presented by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and Sir Compton Mackenzie’s The Glory that was Greece (1959). Making use of archival documentation from the BBC Written Archives Centre, including audience research reports, the chapter details the network of influences on the series. It is argued that these series draw on earlier forms of encounters with and depictions of the sites of ancient Greece, including the Grand Tour, 19th-century photography, tourism, film travelogues and radio programming. In addition, the chapter details the ways in which these two series contributed centrally to establishing the fundamentals of the emerging form of the presenter-led documentary. This approach to documentary flourished a decade later in the BBC series Civilisation (1969), with Sir Kenneth Clark. Similar series centred on a journey with a presenter wh...
Exploration of the ways in which Henry Moore and his work was presented on television and in film... more Exploration of the ways in which Henry Moore and his work was presented on television and in film documentaries during his lifetime.
Following the unerthing of a cache of British TV plays in the US, John Wyver rediscovers a lost w... more Following the unerthing of a cache of British TV plays in the US, John Wyver rediscovers a lost world of 1950s and 60s studio drama
The audience in the main cinema of the Institute of Contemporary Arts on one evening in mid-Febru... more The audience in the main cinema of the Institute of Contemporary Arts on one evening in mid-February 1982 numbered just four. The screening was the first of a month-long season of television material and films linked to the highlypublicised Police series on BBC1, and ...
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