Dr Brad Gyori

I study how new media stories work by creating them. My practice-based research includes elements that are interactive, multi-media, transmedia and location-aware. I am particularly interested in how different virtual and physical contexts influence User Experience (UX), narrative enjoyment, retention and comprehension.

I am a Practice Led Researcher. I make stories in order to understand how stories work. Key characteristics..

• Social - influenced by the crowd
• Interactive - influenced by the individual
• Locative - influenced by the context of engagement
• Multi-Modal - influenced various mediums and platforms

The research questions I explore are…
1. How does merging contexts of engagement (physical, theatrical and virtual) influence User Experience?
2. What designs best promote associative learning?
3. How do the poetics of path and place influence narrative pleasures and meanings?

My current project, Shelley’s Heart, involves collaborations with students and staff from diverse disciplines including creative writing, game design, animation, and filmmaking. I have also teamed up with industry professionals, including local actors, web designers and sound designers. Shelley’s Heart centres on two local heritage sites (St. Peter’s Church in Bournemouth and The Shelley Theatre in Boscombe). It has been awarded funding from the Bournemouth Borough Council and Bournemouth University.

In November of 2018, I directed a staged production of Shelley’s Heart at the Shelley Theatre. Elaborating on multi-media assets from this production, our team is now creating an interactive location-aware story experience. This iteration of Shelley’s Heart will be unveiled on October 31st 2018 (Halloween) to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The project debut coincides with an academic conference host by AUB and the launch of the annual Shelley Frankenstein Festival.

The app will be freely available to the public for years to come and will function as both a tourism draw and an educational tool. It features 4 intersecting story-paths including information about 4 key literary figures: Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and John Keats.

From 2015-2020, Dr Brad Gyori designed the Shelley's Heart Transmedia Learning Experience. Its research aim: promoting cultural education across multiple media platforms.

Tying the Shelley Tomb in Bournemouth to the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein (2018), Gyori secured £12,000 in funding. He then investigated the mechanics of interactive education tools and read biographies of Mary Shelley and the Romantics. Via an Action Research methodology, prototypes and user tests were developed and best practices were identified across three platforms:

Theatrical (2017) - An interactive stage version presented in the Shelley Theatre in Boscombe took two hours to perform but contained six hours of available material. To keep the budget reasonable, Gyori filmed eight ghostly characters who appeared on screens around the stage and interacted with three live actors. During the first performance, the audience voted to skip key scenes, so the voting mechanic was subsequently altered to limit such choices.

Locative (2018) - Creating a locative story set in St. Peter’s churchyard meant shifting to a single-player interface, so Gyori split the story into four paths, each representing the perspective of a different character. As location-aware narratives requires participant to hike trails and brave harsh weather, he reduced the number of scenes per path (from 15 to 10) and their length (from 3 minutes to 1). Participants at the debut requested more narrative context, so an introductory text was added. Also, some of the geo links were widened to make them more responsive.

Desktop (2019) - As desktop users sought more immersion, Gyori re-envisioned the participant as a ghost engaging with supernatural social media platforms to unlock educational content. This version can reach students in a classroom setting, allowing them to explore the churchyard remotely. The static map solves tracking issues, and animated gifs replace videos making for a fluid interface and lower data usage.