Phi_VR_books: Collaborative documentation of our recent digital past

What are the implications of AVR (augmented, virtual and mixed reality) for collaboration concerned with preserving our more recent digital heritage? The authors of this paper will describe their collaborative, participatory work with artist’s books and mixed reality, works which archive historical responses to artists’ books, these books are framed as part of the recent historical legacy of computational, interactive works, works which, in the current acceleration, and obsolescent cycles of digital technologies, risk being lost without concerted efforts. Our work as technologists, designers and writers, as well as academic researchers, seeks to identify the chances and challenges of VR collaborative environments, adopting an Interdisciplinary and intermedia approach, at the intersection of the gallery, games, film, theatre and fine arts. Our paper will outline the author's research into intelligent books and immersive collaborative forms, including situated computing and post humanist conceptions of readers and readership. The work extends both author’s long-standing collaboration on The Phi Books (2008-).

The work draws upon Haraway, Alva Noe, Braidotti and the roboticist Rodney Brooks, among other contemporary theories of artificial intelligence, AVR, collaboration and wider theories of the Virtual, as well as, of course, the future, and past, of the book. The authors will present their recent VR book, PHI_VR, an immersive, collaborative artists’ book documenting ten years of collaboration.