Upgrade of Production Arts IT infrastructure to enable a future Performance Industry Centre for the Research and Application of Creative Technologies

升级制作艺术IT基础设施，打造未来演艺产业创意技术研究与应用中心

• 批准号: AH/X010309/1
• 负责人: Andrew Lavender
• 金额: $ 114.83万
• 依托单位: Guildhall School of Music and Drama
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX010309%2F1
• 关键词: Upgrade; Production; Arts; infrastructure; enable

Guildhall School of Music & Drama is a world-leading small specialist higher education institution with established research strengths in Music and Drama. But it also has decades-long established training expertise in Production Arts (sometimes called Technical Theatre), providing the highly skilled creative workforce without which high-quality theatrical (and to a certain extent musical) performance cannot be realised. Our research environment has grown rapidly since the School's first participation in the national assessment of HE research in 2008; Production Arts is the one main area where lack of technological capability has so far held us back. In the increasingly important areas of digital performance and technologically enhanced immersive experience in particular, we lack the necessary infrastructure. Therefore we are applying for funding to establish a new Production Arts research facility in-house.This development will build on our existing extensive range of partnerships with small and medium-sized companies working in the UK creative industries, as well as with selected HE research partners. It will involve using existing spaces within our buildings to deploy largely portable state-of-the-art equipment in order to explore the research potential of visual effects and extended reality (XR, incorporating, variously, hyper-, augmented and virtual reality). We will use this equipment to carry out a series of creative research projects that explore technology's role in the future of production artistry. In the first place, this will be achieved by providing access for performance makers and researchers inside the School to world-class technical facilities, but-just as important-it will also facilitate their access to the skills and knowledge of existing and additional industry partners, drawn in by the opportunity to benefit from our investment. Our medium-term aim is to crystallise this dynamic by establishing a Performance Industry Centre for the Research and Application of Creative Technologies. Not only would this research centre consolidate and grow our research collaborations and exchanges with industry and other HEIs, it would help effect internal collaboration between the Research department, Guildhall Live Events (a semi-spun-out teaching, research and commercial services body), and the new Electronic and Produced Music department (which has recently recruited new staff working at the edges of this area, especially in gaming). The first step, and the object of the present request, is the procurement of two significant pieces of audio-visual hardware and associated IT for their use. (A third piece of equipment, complementary but more focused on our workforce training mission, is the object of another funding bid.) The period of the grant will be devoted to their installation by technical staff from the Production Arts department, the training of a small core of researchers, and the planning and initial implementation of a series of creative technology workshops aimed at selecting a range of pilot projects to test the potential of a) the equipment, b) its interaction with the School's existing research teams, both entirely internal and involving familiar external partners, and c) new partners from among the most innovative small businesses in the sector. The plan is then to review progress and move ahead with development of the new research centre in whatever is revealed to be the most productive and sustainable way.

市政厅音乐与戏剧学院是一所世界领先的小型专业高等教育机构，在音乐和戏剧方面拥有成熟的研究实力。但它还拥有数十年的制作艺术（有时称为技术剧院）培训专业知识，提供高技能的创意劳动力，没有这些劳动力就无法实现高质量的戏剧（在某种程度上是音乐）表演。自2008年学院首次参与全国高等教育研究评估以来，我们的研究环境得到了快速发展；制作艺术是迄今为止由于缺乏技术能力而阻碍我们发展的主要领域之一。在日益重要的数字性能领域，特别是技术增强的沉浸式体验领域，我们缺乏必要的基础设施。因此，我们正在申请资金在内部建立一个新的制作艺术研究设施。这一发展将建立在我们与英国创意产业中小型公司以及选定的高等教育研究机构现有的广泛合作伙伴关系的基础上合作伙伴。它将涉及利用我们建筑物内的现有空间来部署主要便携式的最先进设备，以探索视觉效果和扩展现实（XR，融合各种超现实、增强现实和虚拟现实）的研究潜力。我们将使用该设备开展一系列创意研究项目，探索技术在未来生产艺术中的作用。首先，这将通过为学院内的表演者和研究人员提供世界一流的技术设施来实现，但同样重要的是，这也将有助于他们获得现有和其他行业合作伙伴的技能和知识，被从我们的投资中受益的机会所吸引。我们的中期目标是通过建立创意技术研究和应用表演产业中心来具体化这一动力。该研究中心不仅将巩固和发展我们与工业界和其他高等教育机构的研究合作和交流，还将有助于实现研究部门、Guildhall Live Events（一个半独立的教学、研究和商业服务机构）之间的内部合作，以及新的电子和制作音乐部门（最近招聘了在该领域边缘工作的新员工，特别是在游戏领域）。第一步，也是当前请求的目标，是采购两个重要的视听硬件和相关的 IT 设备以供其使用。 （第三件设备是另一项资助投标的目标，是补充，但更侧重于我们的劳动力培训任务。）赠款期间将专门用于由生产艺术部门的技术人员安装这些设备，培训小型核心研究人员，以及一系列创意技术研讨会的规划和初步实施，旨在选择一系列试点项目来测试a）设备的潜力，b）其与学院现有研究团队的互动，两者都完全是内部的并让熟悉的外部合作伙伴参与进来，以及 c) 来自以下领域的新合作伙伴该行业最具创新性的小型企业。然后，该计划将审查进展情况，并以最有效和最可持续的方式推进新研究中心的开发。