Category Archives: virtual heritage

Centres that engage in virtual heritage, archaeology and games research

heritage, PhD, Postdoc, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality

I get asked this by people quite often and while this is by no means a definitive list, it might help those interested in game-focussed archaeology/heritage PhD opportunities and postdocs:

USA:

Europe:

Asia-Pacific:

As I said, this is by no means a definitive list (and very English language-biased) but I have noticed the above often promote PHD and Postdoc opportunities. I will have some opportunities in PhD positions and a postdoc that I will put on this site, hopefully before June.

Game Mechanics Part II: Roger Caillois

3D and game editors, archaeology, game, virtual heritage, , ,
Forms of Play really elementsStimulates because it isArchaeology games
Competition Agon (competition / strategy)Compete against people, long-term decision makingCivilization? All those build empire games..
Chance AleaHandling unpredictability, humourCould Spore be an archaeoogy game?
Vertigo IlinxMastery of commitment, mental focus, multi-taskingThe extreme parkour of Assassin’s creed?
Mimicry mimesisObservation, control and humour and roleplaying ? Maybe if the Sims 4 was used as anthropological machinima?

Roger Caillois wrote about four forms of play (a spectrum ranging from free play to the rules-based essence of games). He wrote about non-digital games but his work has been reviewed and critiqued by many game theorists (and anthropologists).

I still find it useful myself, but I would modify it as per the above table (not so much as forms of play but as motivators for mechanics)* and with the following comments:

  1. Competition motivates people for two reasons, they love competing against others, and they also love long-term strategy making but these are often quite different, so perhaps this form of play is actually two forms of play?
  2. Chance stimulates people to play because of the above, but it is also frustrating unless handled well with suitable game balance (I don’t like playing snakes and ladders because it is all about chance so perhaps I am biased).
  3. Vertigo is an interesting one, in dance-based games, seldom in computer games (and perhaps even more dangerous in VR-Head mounted games due to the potential for nausea), and very very uncommon in games for archaeology! I will have to really investigate whether any archaeology-games use vertigo!
  4. Mimicry: despite so many cultural rituals and games using this, this is so rare in computer games (yes, I know, Spy Party but a 7 year development cycle does not give me confidence).

Actually there is another column (not in this article) where I will bullet point some ideas for leveraging these play forms to communicate archaeological significance, progress, and controversy. For another day!

*Motivators for mechanics, what I mean here are the motivators that mechanics try to leverage, the reasons people are stimulated to play games..I understand the MDA framework may attribute this to aesthetics, but I feel their three-part theory for game design (Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics) compacts too many different components into three overly simple concepts.

Article References:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man,_Play_and_Games
  2. http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LuizClaudioSilveiraDuarte/20150203/233487/Revisiting_the_MDA_framework.php

 

 

game mechanics during the Iron Age in Yorkshire

Academic, archaeology, virtual heritage, , , , , , ,

‘Hugely important’ iron age remains found at Yorkshire site

The above is not really a picture of the beautiful artefacts, rather, my colleague Karen Miller’s snap of her class’s Lego schematic of Deakin Uni’s digital literacy framework, but you get the drift..

Hugely Important Iron Age Remains!

So says the Guardian (Nazia Parvenu, North of England correspondent,Thursday 17 March 2016 11.01 AEDT).

In the comments, however, quite a few don’t see the point, at all!

“The comments show a distinct misunderstanding of what archaeologists do & why, & basic archaeological chronology: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/17/hugely-important-iron-age-remains-found-yorkshire-site.. As archaeologists, it’s eye opening: these comments reflect a lack of basic but authoritative info we should have on Wikipedia, at least” tweeted @lornarichardson (Umeå).

Yes! We need to educate on process not only product (if a virtual heritage model is a product). Reading the comments to an article on a find in Yorkshire might lead archaeologists to despair. However a more optimistic (the glass of hemlock is half full) approach might lead us to conclude from the comments:

People are genuinely interested in process (how old are the beads and how did they get there and what happens to the bodies?

The answer might appear prosaic:

“Hello, anyone interested in learning more about the archaeological process in relation to this site can head to the East Riding of Yorkshire Planning Portal and search for application ref 13/02772/STPLF Documents logged there include the Desk Based Assessment by MAP Archaeology from August 2013 that predicted the presence of the barrows on site using aerial photos in the Humber Sites and Monuments Record (SMR) and a letter from the SMR clarifying details of the proposed excavation of the site, such as amount of the site to be sampled and the necessity for full publication.”

But it very distinctly shows the process of exploration, quest,  and of discovery as part of doing archaeology.

So how does this relate to mechanics?

Mechanics are used oh so confusingly (see a discussion on the MDA framework, and the comments, or this older 2006 article by Lost Garden with their definition below).

Game mechanics are rule based systems / simulations that facilitate and encourage a user to explore and learn the properties of their possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms.

Thank you Lost Garden! But now we have another problem:

GM=Rules+PlaySpace/PossibilitySpace+Affordances+Feedback! Not much left over really (perhaps aesthetics, but aesthetics means more than appearance or taste).

And I could spend hours thinking about a more accurate definition of GM (Game Mechanics) but the issue here is really what sort of game mechanics would be of use to archaeologists and historians and heritage people who want to design, teach and experience such things?

Some definitions are more teleological
http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart:
“..I define core mechanics as the game mechanics (repeatedly) used by agents to achieve a systemically rewarded end-game state…
Primary mechanics can be understood as core mechanics that can be directly applied to solving challenges that lead to the desired end state.
Secondary mechanics, on the other hand, are core mechanics that ease the player’s interaction with the game towards reaching the end state.”

And yet Professor Sicart concludes the article with what to me seems to be a third and distinctly different definition:
“This article has defined game mechanics as methods invoked by agents for interacting with the game world.”

Notice the above don’t directly or primarily aim to influence the player’s mind or behaviour. Is there no space here for a little procedural rhetoric?

I’d like to keep it simple, but without attempting to destroy (completely) the useful vagueness of mechanics here are some working definitions as different flavours/aims of game mechanics:

  1. Game progression mechanics (mechanics to progress the player through the game)
  2. Performance mechanics / Rewards and skills mastery mechanics (mechanics to encourage the player to improve and extend their range of skills and judgement)
  3. Narrative mechanics (tools to progress /unfold or bring together one or more apparent story threads in relation to game play). Are dramatic mechanics a subset?
  4. Behavioural and Role assimilation mechanics (mechanics which become habit through repeated game play, and accustom players to see things in certain ways)
  5. Insight and reversal mechanics (mechanics that disrupt the in-game or real-world expectations and presumptions of the player acquired previously or during the game in order to reveal to them a viewpoint they may take for granted, or to supplant the view created by game play but a view the designer wants them to suddenly by alienated from).

I understand this seems counter-intuitive to the above definitions, especially the MDA framework (Hunicke et al, 2004, summarised on the Wikipedia, visualised as gameficational lenses by Jenny Carroll, described via 8 kinds of fun by Marc LeBlanc). However mechanics helps me when I think of the public approach/response to archaeology, the public don’t see product OR process in the same way the archaeologists do.

If digital simulations are to help archaeological communication (to simplify crudely: Why archaeology? What is archaeology? How to appreciate/do good archaeology?) then we need to think of mechanics beyond a mere advancement of game play per se.

This also ties in with another issue: the English language problem in defining and distinguishing model and simulation. I am now leaning towards thinking simulation is the more confusing term, it can be a model as in a crafted or digital object, a communicated process model that explains a predictive theory, or a hypothetical model turned into a systematic generator of potential scenarios not predicted by the system designer (a weather simulation can explain what weather has or will take place OR it can create a prediction of weather based on a conceptual, verifiable model of weather that isn’t normally a physical model of weather).

Mechanics don’t just help a model to take shape, for the wheels to spin around and pull a toy train. Mechanics helps progress a fictional world of complicit belief.

Depending on what you want to do with them, game mechanics are sometimes seen as digital tropes, or as what connects parts of a game together. They are techniques or they are components. And although they are apparently crucial to game design, the inability to distinguish them clearly from other parts of a game makes me wonder – so seldom do we hear of bad game mechanics.

Will return to this and expand on it a little more. Hopefully it makes sense, but your mileage may vary.

CFP VSMM 2016 Kuala Lumpur October 2016

Conference, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality

vsmm2016.org “Transdisciplinary – Transmedia – Transformations”
The 22nd International Conference on Virtual Systems & Multimedia VSMM 2016, will be held at Sunway University (SU), Kuala Lumpur, hosted by the Faculty of Arts, the Centre for Research Creation in Digital Media (CRCDM) and the Faculty of Science and Technology, in October 2016. Abstracts due: 16 May 2016.

VSMM2016_CFP.pdf

Cultural Presence

archaeology, digital heritage, heritage, virtual heritage

I have written quite a bit about the above in virtual heritage and this terms has since shown itself in quite a few papers (Flynn, Tyler-Jones, Tost et al.) but now I feel compelled to state

  • I wrote about cultural presence because it and social presence seem conflated in ISPR telepresence/presence literature and
  • UNESCO’s terms of culture and cultural heritage did not seem linked to the aims and results of many virtual heritage projects and
  • Culture and Society are not the same, and I wrote about that in the latest MIT Presence journal.
  • Archaeology and heritage sites don’t all have cultural presence that we could or should always try to simulate in digital heritage projects.
  • Cultural presence isn’t the sole criterion for virtual heritage but it is interesting when thinking about simulated designed places (and why virtual heritage and otherwise historic places seem so shallow compared to real places).
  • I should update my thoughts on this so people won’t think I believe cultural presence is the be-all and end-all!

Revolutionary Woe: Notes on Assassin’s Creed III

archaeology, game, heritage, virtual heritage

Invalid Memory

1.

Against better judgment, I always felt compelled to give Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series the benefit of the doubt, an undoubtedly foolish errand motivated mostly by a long-standing craving for a decent blockbuster open-world action series. I consider these games a kind of equivalent to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, titillating a base desire for silly, undemanding madcap fun loaded with swashbuckling rogues and propulsive energy. The first few games are amusing at times, bolstered primarily by the easy charisma of Ezio Auditore in his narrative trilogy. At other times, these early games even touted what could be argued as thematic depth or artistic risk, sentiments that emerge when considering the first Assassin’s Creed’s allegory for a post-9/11 political landscape or the underappreciated Assassin’s Creed: Revelation’s Brutalist architectural abstractions.

But these instances are merely outliers that have more to do with capable critics than the games…

View original post 2,899 more words

Virtual Heritage Article free to download until 21 April 2016

archaeology, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, virtual heritage, , , , ,

Elsevier have kindly let me and others download the below article from the Journal Entertainment Computing, (Volume 14, May 2016, Pages 67–74) up until 21 April 2016. From 22 April it will be behind the Elsevier paywall again.

http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Se406gYiZRYG4
No sign up or registration is needed – just click and read!

Title: Entertaining The Similarities & Distinctions Between Serious Games & Virtual Heritage Projects

Abstract:
This article summarizes past definitions of entertainment, serious games and virtual heritage in order to discuss whether virtual heritage has particular problems not directly addressed by conventional serious games. For virtual heritage, typical game-style entertainment poses particular ethical problems, especially around the simulation of historic violence and the possible trivialization of culturally sensitive and significant material. While virtual heritage can be considered to share some features of serious games, there are significantly different emphases on objectives. Despite these distinctions, virtual heritage projects could still meet serious games-style objectives while entertaining participants.

Post-doctoral contract offer : Collaborative mapping and geovisualisation of spatio-historical data sets

archaeology, Architecture, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, job, Postdoc, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , ,

The MAP research unit offers a post-doctoral position for a period of 12 months starting on June 1st 2016. The position profile is related to the field of geovisualisation, but in an application to spatio-historical data sets, and in the context of a citizen science exploratory project.

The MAP unit, funded by CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and by the French Ministry for Culture, conducts interdisciplinary research activities focusing on the integration of computer science methodologies, formalisms and tools to applications fields like heritage architecture, history and archaeology, spatio-temporal dynamics (www.map.cnrs.fr).

The team is in charge of an exploratory research programme entitled Territographie (www.map.cnrs.fr/territographie), a programme the aim of which is to weigh the potential impact of the citizen science approach in the study of the so-called minor heritage (i.e. collections encompassing tools for agriculture, old occupations, unlisted edifices, etc.).
The team wishes to develop and test a customizable collaborative mapping solution, intended for use in collecting information as well as in browsing/selecting information.

You will find attached two PDF documents (one in French, one in English) presenting the details of the offer : context , mission, skills required , conditions, application procedures.

Contact:

Livio De Luca
Directeur de Recherche au CNRS
Directeur de l’UMR CNRS/MCC MAP _ Modèles et simulations pour l’Architecture et le Patrimoine
http://www.map.cnrs.fr

Email: livio.deluca

postDoctoralPosition_territographie.pdf

offrePostDoc_territographie.pdf

Review of Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage

3D and game editors, Academic, archaeology, Biofeedback, Book, Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, ,
Internet Archaeology (@IntarchEditor)
16/02/2016, 7:52 PM
NEW! Review of Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.40… @nzerik pic.twitter.com/TMsT7pHRx1

I have to say I found this a fair and interesting book review, my book was intended more as a primer for ideas for others to both reflect on and design (as well as evaluate) virtual heritage and interactive history projects but the change in jobs (and countries) chapter structure and word parameters resulted in some chapters to be less in-depth than the topics deserved. And as I noted on Twitter there is at least one (and probably several) reasons for the apparently too-dominant focus on built heritage! So sorry archaeologists but thanks to all for retweeting the review!

archaeology publishers mostly in the area of digital archaeology and video games

Academic, archaeology, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Open Access, press, publication, virtual heritage, , , , , ,

I have been given a deadline of February 3 to source funding for a flight to the Netherlands to the “Interactive Pasts” Value conference 4-5 April 2016. They said they hope to publish an edited book from the conference and I asked them if they had heard of the below publishers (although they probably have their own) so I added the below links. Hope this is of use to someone. Happy to add links to publishers that I have missed.

Call for Book Chapters: “Place and the Virtual”

Architecture, Book, cfp, heritage, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , ,

I am seeking 8-12 chapters for an edited book on “Place and the Virtual”. Proposed chapters can be on

  1. Definitions, main concepts, historical interpretations.
  2. Critical reviews of virtual places (theoretical or individual existing or past or future examples).
  3. Investigations into the similarities dissonances and differences between real places and virtual places.
  4. Applications of theories in other fields to the design or criticism of virtuality and place.
  5. Implications of related technologies, social trends, issues and applications.

Typical book chapter length: 5,000–8,000 words

Current Status of Proposal: The book proposal will be sent to the below editors for review when I have approximately 8-12 chapter abstracts.
Submission format: by email or attached word or RTF (rich text format) document, approximately 300-500 words.
Deadline for chapter abstracts: Still considering applications.

Email your abstract to: erik DOT champion AT Curtin DOT edu DOT au

Proposed to be part of a new planned Bloomsbury Books Series: Thinking Place, Series Editors Jessica Dubow and Jeff Malpas.Please distribute to interested parties.

Virtual Heritage Models: in Search of Meaningful Infrastructure

Book, infrastructure, virtual heritage, , , ,

Above is title of book chapter being revised/reviewed for Ashgate’s Cultural Heritage Creative Tools and Archives (edited book).

At 7,799 words I hope I am not asked to revise upwards!

Alternative title: Preserving the Heritage Component of Virtual Heritage

Abstract:
Teaching virtual heritage through the careful inspection, contextualization and modification of 3D digital heritage models is still problematic. Models are hard to find, impossible to download and edit, in unusual, unwieldy or obsolete formats, and many are standalone 3D meshes with no accompanying metadata or information on how the data was acquired, how the models can be shared (and if they can be edited), and how accurate the scanning or modeling process was, or the scholarly documents, field reports, photographs and site plans that allowed the designers to extract enough information for their models. Where there are suitable models in standard formats that are available from repositories, such as in Europeana library portal, they are encased in PDF format and cannot be extended, altered or otherwise removed from the PDF. Part of the problem has been with the development of virtual heritage; part of the problem has been with a lack of necessary infrastructure. In this chapter I will suggest another way of looking at virtual heritage, and I will promote the concept of a scholarly ecosystem for virtual heritage where both the media assets involved and the communities (of scholars, shareholders and the general public) are all active participants in the development of digital heritage that is a part of living heritage.

—About 7000 words later —

Conclusion: A New Virtual Heritage Infrastructure

I hope I have been clear about three major points. I have argued that virtual heritage will not successful as digital heritage if it cannot even preserve its own models and it will not be effective if it cannot implement digital technologies great advantages: real-time reconfiguration to suit the learner, device and task at hand; individual personalization; increased sense of agency; automatic tracking and evaluation mechanisms; and filtered community feedback. My suggestion is to implement not so much a single file format but to agree upon a shared relationship between assets. For want of a better word, I have described the overall relationship of components of virtual heritage infrastructure as a scholarly ecosystem.

Secondly, in this new age of digital communication the 3D model must be recognized as a key scholarly resource (Di Benedetto et al., 2014). As a core part of a scholarly ecosystem the model should be traceable, it should link to previous works and to related scholarly information. I suggest that the model should be component-based so that parts can be directly linked and updated. Web models would be dynamically created at runtime. The model should be engaging so extensive playtesting and evaluation is required to ensure it actually does engage its intended audience. As part of a scholarly infrastructure, the 3D model format (and all related data formats) should be easy to find and reliable. It should not require huge files to download or it should at least provide users with enough information to decide whether and what to download. Metadata can also help record the completeness, measurement methodology and accuracy of the models and Linked Open Data can help connect these media assets in a sensible and useful way.

Thirdly, the community of scholars, students and the wider public should be involved and we must endeavour to meaningfully incorporate their understanding, feedback and participation, this is a core requirement of UNESCO World Heritage status. Community involvement is a must for scholars as well and so I suggest that the virtual heritage projects dynamically link to journals and refereed conference papers and to the list of tools and methods that were used in the project. A robust feedback system could help continually improve the system. Other shareholder issues such as varying levels of learning skills, and varying levels of knowledge required or cultural knowledge that needs to be hidden (privacy and ownership issues) should also be incorporated into the project.

Virtual Heritage vs Gamification. Fight!

3D and game editors, archaeology, Conference, digital heritage, game, virtual heritage

I shared on twitter a concern I had about the apparently uncritical acceptance (and especially increasing acceptance) of gamification.

I say apparently as perhaps authors of various publications do have a critical appreciation of the risks and connotations of gamification, but they don’t always share it.

Even though I touched on this in Critical Gaming, I need some percolation time for this but something for me to think about as to my immediate reaction and aversion to this (uncritical use of) gamification is that

  • Gamification ‘sounds’ to my ears like a trivialization of heritage. In my own research if you tell someone a digital archaeology simulation is a game they have less trouble navigating and performing tasks in the simulation but they take less care and have less respect for the cultural significance, authenticity and accuracy of that simulation.
  • Plus there seems to be a hidden or invisible formula: non-games, add gamification fairy dust,….games!
  • For if you search for richer and more defensible definitions of gamification it seems to me these definitions are getting harder and harder to separate from games per se.
  • Gamification implies there is a simple conversion over to games and it is a binary relationship,  there are games or non-games. We need a term that implies some but not all aspects of games have been applied/incorporated/added. Ludification? Unfortunately no, it has a dangerous related meaning! Perhaps something that reflects a Paideia/Ludus scale? Playful learning or play-based learning seems to be the closest fit for me so far..

Luckily I am not alone, thanks to Trevor Owens directing me to his Meanification article and to Shawn Graham for his Gamification article. Gotta love academification.

 

 

are there open access virtual heritage/digital archaeology journals?

archaeology, Journal, virtual heritage, , ,

Not so many virtual heritage open access journals (help me here!) but there are various open access archaeology journals:

  • The open access archaeology journal I first knew of (around 2004 I think I first heard of it?) http://intarch.ac.uk/ does have Author Processing Charges (APC) and I don’t know the cost of APC (I assume it varies based on page count) but it does also include 3D media asset. Now “All our content is Open Access”.
  • Now there is also Open Archaeology which only issues once per year, and accepts many graphic formats (but not 3D?) but what interested me was this request:It is important that authors include a cover letter with their manuscript. Please explain why you consider your manuscript as suitable for publication in the Journal, why will your paper inspire the other members of your field, and how will it drive research forward. However, there is a pricing paragraph on the right. Most confusing, is it open access and authors pay? In passing, there is an interesting issue entitled Topical Issue on Challenging Digital Archaeology.
  • There is also a wider ranging series of open access journals in ancient studies. I note also the open access and free articles in the JOURNAL OF ANCIENT HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY.
  • Frontiers in Digital Humanities is not archaeology-specific but does have a digital archaeology section so deserves a mention.As it includes experimental work I am not sure how it is rated as a quality journal output by educational institutes (Indexed in: Google Scholar, CrossRef) but in Australia very few open access journals in any field (especially Digital Humanities!) seem to receive the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) rating anyway! Frontiers have a tiered reader-decided impact-led publication system which I find rather interesting if puzzling.
  • There is also Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry Journal, which is a little more wide ranging, I believe, than the title suggests (although there is obviously an emphasis on the Mediterranean region) . It has been free open access PDF articles since 2014, and is issued three times a year.
  • American Journal of Archaeology is open access but only for book reviews, review articles, editorials etc. Eprint articles can be stored in an institutional repository.
  • There is also the Open Access Journal: Virtual Archaeology Review.
  • Doug’s archaeology blog lists archaeology journals and open access journals.
  • Please also consider the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology – looks interesting! “Journal of Contemporary Archaeology is the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to explore archaeology’s specific contribution to understanding the present and recent past.” It features both open access and subscription access.
  • For more general publishing outlets in archaeology please consider these resources http://researchguides.uoregon.edu/anthropology/openaccess
  • Finally, I’d like to mention The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press including Digital Archaeology such as open access issue/proceedings (?) Archaeology 2.0. Open Access in general? I hope so!

Digital Heritage/Virtual Heritage Open Access Journals? A work-on! I wonder if there is enough of a market to push for a virtual heritage open access journal or if it is more realistic to dock such an idea under the arm of a more general archaeology or heritage open access journal.

For more game-related articles there is the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (but I don’t know if they still have APC); Game Studies and Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture, and so on.

“Conflict-Solving Strategies in Heritage Studies” Germany, conference applications

Academic, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, ,

Application

Application.

Deadline for applications: August 25, 2015

General Information:
Applicants are expected to select one of the thematic areas in order to give a 15-minute oral presentation in one of the workshops. Short-listed applicants have to submit a 2,000-word essay and a draft poster.

The thematic areas for in-class presentations are:

  1. Conflict-solving strategies in the context of historic urban landscapes
  2. Cultural landscapes in conflict: challenges and solutions
  3. Heritage in the event of war and terrorism
  4. Climate change and natural disasters as challenges for natural heritage
  5. Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) as a tool for solving conflicts

How to apply?
In order to apply please submit the following documents:

  1. Application form (Please download the form to your computer)
  2. Curriculum Vitae (1 page)
  3. Letter of Motivation indicating the chosen thematic area (1 page)
  4. Abstract of your research project in progress, i.e. your in-class presentation (0,5 page)
  5. Proof of enrolment as a Master’s or Ph.D. student

Applications procedure:
Please, be aware that applicants have to select one of the five thematic areas described above. The application is considered incomplete, if a thematic area is not indicated. The short-listed candidates will be invited to submit a 2,000-word essay on their in-class presentation by September 15, 2015. Based on the quality of the papers the advisory board of ISAC will select the definite participants and award up to 15 scholarships.

Course Fee:
Participants have to pay a registration fee of 250 euros that includes tuition, course materials and the costs of the thematic excursions.

Scholarships:
ISAC may offer up to 15 scholarships provided by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
The selection criterion is the quality of your application (i.e. relevance of your studies, letter of motivation, quality of the abstract and the 2,000-word essay on your in-class presentation).
The scholarships cover accommodation and a lump sum for traveling costs. Please note that traveling costs will be reimbursed according to the regulations of the DAAD.
Eligible are only international students that are enrolled at a foreign university. Neither degree-seeking international students enrolled at a German higher education institution nor German students enrolled at a foreign higher education institution are eligible.
A limited number of junior researchers who work at a foreign higher education institution may be awarded a scholarship. Either way, you have to provide a proof of enrolment or a certificate from your employer.

Please send your application via email to:
Ms. Dariya Afanasyeva
Scientific Assistant
BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg
Chair Intercultural Studies, UNESCO Chair in Heritage Studies
Email: heritagecottbus[at]gmail.com

potential paper in Forum on Video Games and Archaeology

3D and game editors, design, digital heritage, game, virtual heritage, ,

Title: Serious Games and Virtual Heritage Have Let Archaeology Down

Wandering around museums or visiting art galleries and school fairs a relatively impartial observer might notice the paucity of interactive historical exhibitions. In particular there is a disconnect between serious games masquerading as entertainment and the aims and motivations of archaeology. Surely this is resolved by virtual heritage projects, interactive virtual learning environments? After all we have therapy games, flight simulators, online role-playing games, even games involving archaeological site inspections (Lara Croft:Tomb raider). Unfortunately we have few successful case studies that are shareable, robust, and clearly delivering learning outcomes.

Out soon: My book “Critical Gaming: Interactive History & Virtual Heritage”

3D and game editors, Architecture, design, Digital Humanities, game, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , ,

Review:

If you would like to review the book please check out this page for contact details: https://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=2253 …

Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage

Purchase:

The book will be available via http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472422910

or Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Gaming-Interactive-Heritage-Humanities/dp/1472422929

This book explains how designing, playing and modifying computer games, and understanding the theory behind them, can strengthen the area of digital humanities. This book aims to help digital humanities scholars understand both the issues and also advantages of game design, as well as encouraging them to extend the field of computer game studies, particularly in their teaching and research in the field of virtual heritage.By looking at re-occurring issues in the design, playtesting and interface of serious games and game-based learning for cultural heritage and interactive history, this book highlights the importance of visualisation and self-learning in game studies and how this can intersect with digital humanities. It also asks whether such theoretical concepts can be applied to practical learning situations. It will be of particular interest to those who wish to investigate how games and virtual environments can be used in teaching and research to critique issues and topics in the humanities, particularly in virtual heritage and interactive history. Contents: Introduction; Digital humanities and the limits of text; Game-based learning and the digital humanities; Virtual reality; Game-based history and historical simulations; Virtual heritage and digital culture; Worlds, roles and rituals; Joysticks of death, violence and morality; Intelligent agents, drama and cinematic narrative; Biofeedback, space and place; Applying critical thinking and critical play; Index.

Seeing Is Revealing: A Critical Discussion on Visualisation And The Digital Humanities

3D and game editors, Academic, Digital Humanities, Presentation, virtual heritage,

My talk for tomorrow’s dh2015.org conference at UWS, Sydney is entitled:
Seeing Is Revealing: A Critical Discussion on Visualisation And The Digital Humanities.
The presentation examines how

  1. More emphasis has been on scientific visualisation, on non-interactive calculation and presentation of quantifiable data but Digital Humanities Visualisation is not only about data, but can also be interactive. vague, questioning and rhetorical.
  2. Visualisation is not only pretty, (refer Baldwin, S. 2013. The Idiocy of the Digital Literary (and what does it have to do with digital humanities)? digital humanities quarterly (dhq) [Online], 7. Available: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/7/1/000155/000155.html [Accessed 14 March 2014]). It can help solve and not just communicate research problems.
  3. Visualisation has to overcome ocularcentrism as Virtual Reality reflects not only sighted reality but non-sighted reality, visualisation is more than just the visual (explain using cave paintings!)
  4. Game design is not typically part of Digital Humanities but it is an interesting vehicle for community feedback, cultural issues, critical reflection and medium-specific techniques (such as procedural rhetoric-see last post).
  5. I will discuss visualisation in terms of game engines for history and heritage, hybrid pano-tables, learning via inventories and maps, NPC driven narrative, indirect personalisation (biofeedback), and active speaker as embedded and embodied characters inside environments.
  6. There are huge issues, HCI, authenticity, developing scholarly arguments in collaboration, preservation, etc.)
  7. So if the above is not Digital Humanities what is it? It employs research in the traditional humanities, converts IT people to humanities research (sometimes), helps preserves and communicates cultural heritage and cultural significance through alterity, cultural constraints and counterfactual imaginings. History and heritage is not always literature! And the DH audience is not always literature-focused or interested in traditional forms of literacy.