Impact case study database

The team’s research A) has fundamentally informed and driven the BBC’s development of new tools and technologies, B) has initiated and enabled the development of new creative practices in industry, and C) has exposed millions of audience members to new concepts and technologies for storytelling, as detailed below.

The BBC is the most significant broadcaster in the UK and has a large R&D Department that is charged with developing innovative cutting-edge televisual and broadcast technologies. It actively seeks out partners with whom it develops ‘next generation systems and standards’ ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/about/our-purpose). In the words of the Head of BBC R&D North, ‘From October 2015, BBC R&D worked alongside Marian’s research team at the University of York to develop OBM as a versatile and user-friendly form of interactive story-telling across IP-based broadcasting. […] Marian’s research, particularly through their Cutting Room toolkit and the “What is Love?” OBM film production has been a key element in this process, […] shaping interactive media tools at the BBC’ [5.1]. The conceptual model and visual design language of Cutting Room, resulting from York’s research, were adopted by BBC’s own OBM Toolkit [5.1] which, in turn, ‘informed the integration of OBM capability […] into existing BBC delivery systems, thus shaping BBC production team workflows and enhancing the ways BBC production teams connect with, and utilise, this innovative, new storytelling technology’ [5.1]. Ursu’s team has thus fundamentally informed future technological developments in the BBC's digital infrastructure.

OBM provokes very new ways of crafting stories, because creative practice now rests on the production of discrete narrative elements and associated ‘recipes’ for their potential user-focused (re-)combinations. The versatility of the Cutting Room toolkit in expressing such ‘recipes’ allowed various production companies to engage more profoundly with the new form and discover new ways of envisaging, designing and crafting them.

B.1 OBM production at the BBC has directly benefited from Ursu’s research. As an example, the 1000^th celebratory episode of Click, the BBC’s flagship technology programme, is a completely interactive episode [5.2a]. Broadcast in 2019, it was created ‘following a visit by the BBC Click team to see the premiere of What is Love? at York Mediale (2018)’ and was ‘[i]nspired by the narrative form of *What is Love?*’ [5.1]. Furthermore, this episode was powered by the BBC’s adoption and adaptation of the Cutting Room toolkit, StoryFormer [5.1]. The Click series editor stated: ‘Click has been on air for nearly 20 years, and in that time we've pioneered new ways of telling stories… This is Click's most ambitious experiment yet, and it promises to bring television into the interactive, online era’ [5.3a]. Other BBC productions made with StoryFormer include His Dark Materials Interactive: Discover Your Daemon, Instagramification , and Make Along Origami Jumping Frog [5.2b-d].

B.2 Symbolism Studios was set up in 2017 ‘to step into the unexplored world of nonlinear video storytelling [...] and be among the pioneers of this emergent art’ [5.4a]. Its founders previously worked with cutting-edge technologies and world-leading brands within Imaginarium Studios, including on The Ruins Of Empires; Star Wars: The Last Jedi; and War For The Planet Of The Apes. In 2018, Symbolism started to work together with Ursu’s team on the production of What is Love?. Cutting Room allowed Symbolism ‘to aim high and take the form far beyond the then industry standard represented by the branching narrative model’ and ‘construct[ed] more complex structures that provide[d] more flexibility to the interactive story, allowing it to provide more nuanced and comprehensive real-time responses in each particular viewing experience’ [5.4a]. They reported that the engagement with Ursu’s research ‘has been essential for our understanding of the potential of the form’ and ‘has positioned us in the top echelon of thinkers and producers of the new form of storytelling’ [5.4a]. For example, the CEO of Symbolism, during a public debate with the producer of the iconic Netflix interactive film Bandersnatch, in which they analysed their experiences of pioneering this new form, praised her positive experience of using Cutting Room in response to some major problems encountered by the Bandersnatch team: ‘I was able to respond with our positive experience of using Cutting Room, which alleviated to a great extent the drawbacks of authoring through Twine identified by [the Bandersnatch producer] and allowed us far more versatility and efficiency in expression’ [5.4a].

B.3 Storypunk is a scripted podcast and TV company, and Bellyfeel an interactive media company, both developers of new forms of digital storytelling. They, in partnership with the York research team, have explored OBM in order to develop an interactive podcast format. This was based on a large collection of interviews with a key collaborator of Bob Marley and his family, relating intricate events with extraordinary connections between them. Storypunk, responsible for the story concept, identified that the main challenge was ‘to dissect this extensive material into smaller objects and to structure them in such a way as to allow the vast number of potential stories to come to life through interactive consumption’ – ‘a huge challenge as there is no prior similar work ever done and the space of possibilities is more or less unlimited’ [5.4b]. They reported that ‘Marian’s research in OBM enabled us to properly engage with the challenge of turning vast source material into workable interactive narratives, and generate ideas and craft prototypes that otherwise would not have been possible’ [5.4b]. Bellyfeel reported through its director that ‘Cutting Room is quite different to anything that I am aware of and it has influenced my thinking about what is possible for interactive storytelling, for example in the way it supports concise and simple expression of complex interactive narrative structures’ [5.4c]. After a first successful step, the production company Storypunk is seeking funding to ‘refine this line of work and plan to continue our collaboration with Marian’s OBM team, [and] use their OBM model and the Cutting Room OBM tool’ [5.4b].

B.4 Cutting Room has also facilitated the engagement with OBM of over 600 innovative storytellers, which are part of a diverse and inclusive community working on the cutting edge of media production, Storytellers United ( https://storytellers.link). BBC R&D used Cutting Room to enable this group to engage with OBM [5.1], in events such as the February 2019 Manchester Hack Jam ( https://storytellers.link). For the BBC, this resulted in the provision of ‘an engaged and enthusiastic group of advocates for OBM-based projects’ and ‘increased access to fellow developers providing valuable feedback on OBM developments’ [5.1].

York research has also enabled the general public to engage with OBM interactive narratives through its own productions as well as through those driven by Cutting Room’s technology.

C.1 What is Love? was one of the major exhibits at York Mediale, Nov 2018, a festival attended by over 19,000 people [5.5, p. 16]. In the Festival’s audience evaluation, What is Love? was reported as having been the 3^rd most popular event from the total of 60, with 20% of the 346 respondents having visited the installation [5.5, p. 13]. The research team estimated that over 900 visitors experienced the interactive production [3.1, p. 133]. A survey of 94 participants carried out by the York team showed that viewers found the production to be interesting and engaging [3.1 p. 134]: 79% rated overall interest as good or very good; 69% rated overall engagement as good or very good. The Mediale team requested a formal peer artistic evaluation of the festival using the Arts Council England Quality Metrics principles [5.5, p. 19]. This led to impressively positive feedback for What is Love?. 8 out of 12 categories received the highest score of 10 out of 10, for example: excellence (‘one of the best examples of its type that I have seen’), originality (‘it was ground-breaking’), captivation (‘it was absorbing and held my attention’), and enthusiasm (‘I would come to something like this again’), whilst the other four received scores of 8 and 9 [5.5, p. 35]. This placed What is Love? 2^nd within 13 surveyed artworks, only one point away from the piece evaluated most highly [5.5, pp. 19-36]. The evaluator’s full scores for the categories of distinctiveness (‘it was different from things I’ve experienced before’) and challenge ('it was thought provoking') [5.5, p. 35], suggest that the film provided audiences with new experiences that challenged their thinking.

C.2 York OBM research gained extensive audience reach through Click and other BBC OBM productions. Click viewers had the opportunity to see and hear about examples of interactive storytelling when What is Love? and Cutting Room featured on its episodes on TV (Oct 2018) and radio (Jan 2019) [5.6]. The selection of the York OBM research to feature on these programmes reflected its importance and worldwide relevance, and introduced the York-developed technology to huge audiences worldwide. Click is distributed online and on both TV and radio across five BBC Channels [5.3b], including the BBC News Channel in the UK and worldwide via World News and the World Service, reaching hundreds of million viewers around the world [5.7].

Furthermore, audiences have been able to have hands-on experience of the interactive narrative form through BBC OBM productions which have made use of the technology developed with York. The OBM BBC productions described in Section B1, above - Click 1000, His Dark Materials Interactive, Instagramification, and Make Along Origami Jumping Frog [5.2] - have enabled over 700,000 people to have first-hand experiences of the OBM interactive narrative form. For example, according to the BBC’s figures, the 1000^th episode of Click reached 323,905 audience members and His Dark Materials Interactive: Discover Your Daemon, 378,424 [5.8].

C.3 York OBM research also enabled BBC R&D to demonstrate their collaborative research into personalised media experiences and data privacy in an accessible format by using the power of interactive storytelling. As the Head of R&D noted: ‘[W]e used [Cutting Room] to create a project demonstrator for Databox, BBC R&D’s collaboration with the University of Nottingham on a platform to manage trusted access to personal data’ [5.1]. The demonstrator, called The Living Room of the Future, allowed audiences to explore the relationship between people’s minutely surveyed daily behaviour through ubiquitous digital devices (Internet of Things) and the potential use of this data in providing more relevant, meaningful and immersive televisual experiences, while ensuring their privacy and security. The interactive film used in this demonstrator was produced with Cutting Room, with guidance from the York team. The Living Room of the Future has been experienced by over 2000 members of the general public at FACT, Liverpool, 4-22 May, 2018 [5.9, p. 98]; the installation has since been experienced by audiences at the V&A, London, 22-23 Sept 2018; Youth Cultural Centre, Skopje, Macedonia, 29 Oct–4 Nov 2018; and Tate Modern, London, 8-9 Feb 2019. As the Head of BBC R&D observed: ‘As a result of the Cutting Room-powered content of “The Living Room of the Future”, public audiences were better able to engage with data ethics issues through personal-data-driven storytelling’ [5.1].

C.4 Ursu’s OBM research helped to enable the city of York to define its status as a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts. In December 2017, York was invited to participate in the Gwangju International Media Arts festival through one representative project from its network [5.10]. The nominated project was Cutting Room which, as York Mediale noted, ‘was at the forefront of the field - informing the development of algorithmic art practice, and the development of mainstream media tools by the likes of the BBC, Mozilla and others’ [5.10]. In the context of an extremely high profile exhibition, ‘the project’s presence helped to secure York’s reputation as a dynamic and innovative city [….] working at the cutting edge of interactive technology’ [5.10].

Peschel’s work with the plays of Terezín has provided a vigorous and imaginative model of how to give a neglected archive renewed, sustainable and, indeed, self-renewing life in the public sphere. The re-activation, research-informed production and pedagogical value of these fascinating plays illustrate how an archive can be invested with refreshed cultural agency in ways that can benefit many constituencies. The impact of Peschel’s work can be found in the following four categories.

By recovering, translating, annotating and publishing the scripts from Terezín [3.1], Peschel had already preserved vital aspects of the ghetto’s cultural heritage and the important insights the scripts reveal regarding the creative agency of people living under oppression. During its 40-month lifespan, PtJA organised six project-specific festivals in five countries: in the US in 2015 and 2016, the UK and the Czech Republic in 2016, and Australia and South Africa in 2017. The festivals carried the programmatic title ‘Out of the Shadows’ to indicate the work of excavation and exhibition entailed by the research project. Peschel was on the organising committee for all the festivals, was co-producer of two, co-created productions for all [3.5 and 3.6], and created additional performances for events such as Holocaust Memorial Day and York’s annual Festival of Ideas, showing audiences the plays as lively, engaging and surprising performances. Thus these stunning scripts that might never have seen the light of day were preserved on the page and brought back to life on the stage.

The reach of the festivals was great in that they were attended by 7,367 people in total, with 1,697 attending the productions created or co-created by Peschel - a significant number, especially considering that many of the performances were intentionally staged in small and intimate venues [5.1a]. In addition, Peschel gained AHRC Follow-On funding for ‘Gido’s Coming Home!’, a six-month series of commemorative, pedagogical and artistic events in the Czech Republic, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Terezín composer Gideon Klein (August 2018-January 2019). Public-facing musical events and theatrical performances based on Peschel’s research [3.1] reached almost 1,000 spectators - a remarkable number, considering the goal of reaching spectators in small venues and provincial cities such as Brno, Přerov and Holešov as well as in Prague [5.1a].

For all these spectators, Peschel’s development of co-textual performances has preserved not only the scripts, but also their context. By interweaving the sometimes fragmentary scripts with material from the history of the ghetto and the biographies of the writers and performers, Peschel has richly augmented the meaning of these works for present-day audiences.

In addition to being presented to live audiences, PtJA festival performances have been preserved on video and are available through a public-facing website created for the PtJA project: https://jewishmusicandtheatre.org/. According to the website’s Google Analytics, from December 2017 to December 2020, the site has had over 8,000 individual visitors from over 105 countries and territories [5.1b].

When organising the festivals, Peschel worked with local event planners and arts administrators, and during the creation of the co-textual performances, she collaborated with local directors, actors and designers. In the US, UK and South African performances, the actors were mainly undergraduate students. In Australia she worked with professional performers and, in the Czech Republic, with a local klezmer ensemble, The Flying Rabbi.

Exposing programming managers and artists to the Terezín plays has expanded their repertoires. For the professional events manager who was hired to manage the PtJA festival in the Czech Republic, the festival opened up a whole new area of repertoire and collaborators. She notes that ‘colleagues and institutions now seek me out with offers to organize new projects with Jewish themes’ and that she can now ‘use my experience and knowledge of Jewish history and culture for the preparation of new projects’ [5.2]. Other festival managers reported similar experiences. For example, the Coordinator of the PtJA Cape Festival, a South Africa-based cellist and Director of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival, wrote: ‘my work as an artistic and programme director has changed because of the project. I now draw on the archive as a source for performance pieces at those festivals I help organise’ [5.3].

Regarding influence on artists, one group affected was a young klezmer band, The Flying Rabbi, booked to perform Jewish Cabaret from Terezín to Helsinki for the Czech ‘Out of the Shadows’ festival. The performance not only introduced them to the Terezín prisoners’ use of humour to cope with their captivity, they also engaged for the first time in spoken-word and theatrical performance, narrating the history of the ghetto and performing sketches in addition to the songs. As the ensemble leader wrote, the group added material from Peschel’s cabaret to their permanent repertoire and, in 2020, were asked ‘to revive [the show] for the Ha-Makom festival of Jewish culture in Holešov, and we hope to have an opportunity to perform it again at […] further festivals in 2021’ [5.4].

Other performers who acknowledge the lasting impact of the project on their development as artists include those who were undergraduate students at the time of the festivals. For example, one performer who was a member of the multi-racial cast of Prinz Bettliegend in South Africa has now completed his drama studies and is pursuing a career as a performer and songwriter. He was recently selected to participate in a highly competitive mentorship program at the Jakes Gerwel Institute, in the lyrics workshop run by a well known Afrikaans musician. He recalls the techniques the cast used to learn ‘the songs that were so quick paced and we had to be able to get in and then quickly out and get it perfectly sounding [...] And I sort of just started using all of those techniques in my songwriting and in general, other methods of learning my lines and everything, so a lot of that established the different work methods that I’ve developed for myself’ [5.5].

Performances based on the Terezín scripts were staged at each of the six PtJA festivals and several of the Gido’s coming home! events. For the US and UK festivals, Peschel and her colleague Alan Sikes developed two performances that were both titled Harlequin in the Ghetto and were based on the same fragmentary script written in the ghetto, Comedy about a Trap, yet explored the very different interests of the undergraduate students they worked with at Louisiana State University and the University of York [3.5]. Audiences had their expectations challenged in ways that are central to Peschel’s research. In post-show questionnaires, this often manifested itself as surprise at the humour and its functions in the ghetto as well as at the politicised agency present in the work. For example, after the performances of Harlequin in the Ghetto in York in June 2016, an audience member wrote in a post-show questionnaire, 'I was surprised at how moved I was by the first (co-textual) performance and how hilarious I found the second (textual) show. The contrast between the two was very effective in terms of understanding the history of the piece.' Others had not expected the use of comedy or such overt political commentary: ‘Surprised at the amount of humour in such scenarios’; 'Surprised how political the ideas were that were allowed’ [5.6].

In 2020, impact on a Czech audience was generated by the Flying Rabbi’s performance at the Ha-Makom festival in Holešov. As a reporter for the city website wrote, ‘the band from Prostějov was able to create such an unprecedented atmosphere that we often found ourselves in a situation where the smile on our lips was driven away by tears in our eyes. So many emotions arose from the performance that one was forced to process. And these are the moments that lead to deep reflection’ [5.7].

A follow-up study was conducted in 2020 with audience members who attended the 2015 festival in the US to investigate long-term impact of the performance through changes in attitude about the prisoners’ level of agency in the ghetto. One respondent noted ‘surprise at how humor was presented’; another remembered the ‘strength in the people of Terezín’. One clearly connected the production to the experience of the present, imagining what it was like to be an immigrant in the US under the Trump administration. After five years, respondents also noted that they had read more about theatre and the Holocaust, watched another performance of theatre produced in ghettos, and recommended these productions to others [5.8].

Peschel’s research has contributed to the practice of the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) by introducing drama to their continuing professional development (CPD) courses for teachers. As the HET’s Education Officer notes, Peschel’s work ‘has been very important in expanding HET’s CPD programme to include drama’, a completely new area for the HET [5.9]. Peschel is now a regular contributor to these CPD courses (holding sessions in September 2016, February 2017, February 2019 and February 2020), thus far reaching 106 teachers [5.9] with a presentation based on Harlequin in the Ghetto about the use of drama in Holocaust education. The CPD has increased teachers’ knowledge of this cultural heritage and its potential uses in the classroom. In a pre-event survey of 37 participants at the 2020 session, 89% reported their knowledge of theatre in the Holocaust as poor or very poor. After the session, 86% reported their knowledge as average or good. The session also inspired further action: just under 70% of the teachers reported they would discuss the workshop’s themes further with colleagues and just under 90% were inspired to discover more about the topic. Ten of the respondents reported that they would change their teaching practice in the light of the session with one noting: ‘Will be passing on the information to my drama department, whilst also establishing ways to expose our pupils to ghetto theatre work. An insightful work with Jewish agency at the heart’ [5.10]. As the HET Education Officer puts it: ‘Lisa’s workshops […] provide [teachers] with a rich array of scripts, and real-world examples of how to explore them with students in ways that conform with Holocaust pedagogy best practice’ [5.9].

As part of the ‘Gido’s coming home!’ project, Peschel held a training class (September 2019) for 32 American Fulbright teachers on using the Terezín scripts for English-language pedagogy in the Czech Republic, and a day-long intensive workshop for 15 Czech and Slovak teachers on creating Terezín-based co-textual performances for Holocaust pedagogy (December 2019). Here, similar positive figures emerged from a survey of the latter group (with 13 respondents). The session improved participants' knowledge, with participants reporting a good or very good knowledge of the cultural life of the ghetto rising from 30% before the session to 100% in post-session evaluation, and over 90% of the teachers intended to integrate the material learned into their teaching practice. As one wrote, ‘the seminar was very inspirational. I look forward to realizing at least some of the texts with students’ [5.10].