Category Archives: virtual heritage

digital heritage models

Digital Archaeology and virtual heritage are not exactly equivalent but I have not seen a paper putting forward a clear definition and relationship. Perhaps that is why a Digital Heritage conference could be attended by archaeologists, archivists, museum experience people, interaction designers, programmers, scanning experts, librarians or museum people. Seldom are they all together, let alone in the same sessions.

If UNESCO and related organizations wish to preserve digital cultural heritage they will have to clearly distinguish between CAD model repositories and online web models (one can have both in one but is it too much of a compromise?)

Another issue is that charters developed for digital heritage, UNESCO digital heritage charter, London Charter, Seville Principles, Burra charter, ICOMOS Venice charter, are read but not used in the creation and storage of most projects.
My solution would be to build a template that is both a heuristics and an information collector that would be used to create suitable meta-tags and classification, based on a hybrid practical implementation of the charters as a query form that helps relate models to ontologies and to other digital collections.

International CIPA Summerschool, 12-19 July 2015, Paestum (Italy)

The CIPA (http://cipa.icomos.org) summer school on “Cultural Heritage 3D Surveying and Modeling” gives the opportunity to scholars, PhD students, researchers and specialists in the surveying and heritage fields to deepen their knowledge and expertise with reality-based 3D modeling techniques. The summer school consists of theoretical lectures (surveying, photogrammetry, active sensors, etc.) and practical work, in the field and in the lab. The participants will learn the basics in surveying and data acquisition (with digital cameras, laser scanning sensors and UAV platforms) as well as practice with data processing methods for 3D models and metric products generation. The summer school is organized within the research project PAESTUM (http://paestum.fbk.eu/) and by CIPA within its dissemination and technology transfer activities and with the financial support of the CIPA sustaining members. VENUE: The location of the school is Paestum, 50 km south of Salerno (Italy). Paestum can be reached by car or train. The closest international airports are Rome or Naples. The event will take place in the Hotel Villa Rita (http://www.hotelvillarita.it) and inside the archaeological area and museum of Paestum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paestum). REGISTRATION FEE and PARTICIPATION: The registration fee for the participation is 600 Eur. The fee includes: lecture material, entrance to the site and museum, full-board hotel, welcome party, social dinner. For the participation, please send a CV to Fabio Remondino – remondinobefore June 5th, 2015. The max number of participants is 24. The participant selection will be done according to the CV and order of arrival of the request.

URL: http://paestum.fbk.eu/node/14

Uploaded some older papers: Virtual Places, and The Limits of Realism

Virtual Places
Article. From: Encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies, 2006, Idea Group Reference

Communities identify and are identified by not just the clothes they wear or by the language they speak, or even by the way they greet each other. Communities are often identified by where their activities take place, how they use spaces to construct meanings, and the traces left by their social interactions. These “trigger” regions are thus not just points in space; they are also landmarks, havens, homes, ruins, or hells. Communities, then, are identified and identify with or against, not just space but place. For places do not just organize space; they orient,
identity, and animate the bodies, minds, and feelings of both inhabitants and visitors.

The Limits of Realism in Architectural Visualisation
Conference paper.
FOR: LIMITS XXIst annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand Melbourne, Australia (SAHANZ) 26–29 September, 2004 website: http://sahanz04.tce.rmit.edu.au/
ABSTRACT
In March 2004 the eminent scholar Professor Marco Frascari presented an informal seminar at the University of Melbourne in which he argued computer reconstructions of architecture were far too exact and thus too limited in conveying the mood and atmosphere of architecture. With all due respect to Professor Frascari, this paper will argue the converse: that recent developments in interactive technology offer new and exciting ways of conveying ‘lived’ and experientially deepened notions of architectural placemaking. Using current research findings in virtual presence studies, archaeological theory and site reports, as well as usability evaluations; this paper will examine the above issues in relation to a recently created and evaluated virtual reconstruction of a Mesoamerican cityLIMITS XXIst annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand Melbourne, Australia (SAHANZ) 26–29 September, 2004

reviews of Critical Gaming book before it is even published

It was a very nice surprise to discover the 3 reviews on Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage at
http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472422910
I tried for a more conversational style that sprang from simple ideas as starting points so I was very happy to hear from people that it  has helped them in their projects and grant applications-even if only as a primer.
I am indebted to the reviewers!
-Erik

Reviews: ‘If anyone doubts that games, gamification, and play do not provide a serious and essential path to creativity and knowledge-production about the past, then Erik Champion’s book will surely change their minds. The book is a must for teachers, historians, archaeologists, and museum and cultural heritage professionals interested in critically using games and virtual reality as tools for teaching and research.’
Ruth Tringham, University of California, Berkeley, USA

‘Champion’s newest work represents a treasure trove of ideas for both scholars and practitioners in the field of digital heritage. Digital media designers will find a plethora of design ideas while researchers will encounter as many useful evaluation suggestions, both with the goal of creating virtual environments that convey a sense of cultural presence and facilitate cultural learning.’
Natalie Underberg-Goode, University of Central Florida, USA

‘By emphasizing the new cultural role of serious games, game-based learning, and virtual heritage in making scholarly arguments, this book demonstrates the relevance of visualization, interaction and game design in a contemporary humanities discourse. It will be of great use to scholars and educators who want to include new digital methods in their research and courses while it will provide indispensable digital literacy, references, and case studies to 21st century students in humanities and heritage-related fields.’
Nicola Lercari, University of California, Merced, USA

next trip: Digital Densities, Melbourne, 26-27 March 2015

Digital Densities 
A symposium examining relations between material cultures and digital data
26th – 27th March 2015, The University of Melbourne.

Hosted by the Digital Humanities Incubator (DHI) in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne.

Presenters include Sarah Kenderdine, Paul Arthur, Erik Champion, Miguel Escobar, Rachel Fensham, Gillian Russell, Nick Thieberger and Deb Verhoeven.

  • Keynote Address: Prof. Sarah Kenderdine. Thursday 26th March 2015, 6-8pm McMahon Ball Theatre, Old Arts Building
  • Registration 8.45am.
  • Friday 27th March 2015, 9am – 5.30pm Linkway, 4th Floor John Medley Building

Admission is free. Bookings are Required. Seating is limited.

My abstract (and I am happy to meet and network with people the day before):

Title: Intangible Heritage, Material Culture and Digital Futures
Our experience with the material culture of situated heritage is typically embodied, personal, and unique. On the other hand, our literary understanding of the past as developed through reading of scholarly texts is typically linear, monovocal, and aplatial.  Our experience and our literary understanding are two modes of knowledge that seldom meet.
Digital humanities has/have promised to provide alternative visions to metanarrative, to frozen information, and to disembodied experiences. Digital technology has offered to destroy distance and difference. My research on the other hand, aims to restore an appreciation of distance and difference, though creating cultural constraints in immersive visualizations through both the limitations and affordances of digital technologies. Now I have proposed to UNESCO to combine game engine capabilities and consumer-level capture technologies with open access 3D cultural heritage content in new and community-maintained online archives. Can this project provide material weight to the virtual?

Publishing in digital heritage and related areas

Due to my current role I have to help grade journals, so as a bit of a test, I had a look at the h index and SJR value of journals roughly in my area (areas?) of research.I used SJR and Google Scholar metrics. They calculate h value differently (the latter has an h5 for 5 years rating) but it was interesting to compare. Individual conferences can score highly but are hard to compare to journals as they appear to be often rated individually rather than as a series. SIGGRAPH is one of the exceptions (Google, SCIMAGOJR) but compare to CHI (google, SCIMAGOJR?)

http://www.scimagojr.com/help.php

SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) indicator: It expresses the average number of weighted citations received in the selected year by the documents published in the selected journal in the three previous years, –i.e. weighted citations received in year X to documents published in the journal in years X-1, X-2 and X-3. See detailed description of SJR .

H Index: The h index expresses the journal’s number of articles (h) that have received at least h citations. It quantifies both journal scientific productivity and scientific impact and it is also applicable to scientists, countries, etc. (see H-index wikipedia definition).

TARGETED JOURNALSH-indexSJRGoogle tag h5
New Media and Society462.1445
Journal of Computer mediated communication641.9636
Cultural Geographies281.4618
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory271.0613
Critical Inquiry291.0217
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies760.9933
Media, Culture & Society320.9624
games and culture230.7521
Journal of Cultural Heritage290.6819
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction350.6225
Critical Studies in Media Communication250.6213
MIT Presence590.5518
Simulation & Gaming320.4525
International Journal of Heritage studies160.4214
International Journal of Heritage in the Digital Era160.426
International Journal of Architectural Computing40.4210
Virtual Reality240.4015
Space and Culture160.3813
Entertainment Computing (journal, conference)70.3510
Journal of Computing and Cultural Heritage80.32?
Digital Creativity80.2910
Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds320.2715
game studies130.19?
Internet Archaeology20.10?
CHI conference Computer Human Interaction78

My 2015 Virtual heritage writings

Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage

Ashgate publishing will produce this 240 page 28 black and white illustrations hardcover book written by me in September (or possibly August):

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472422910

“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.”

Contents:

Introduction

Chapters:

  • 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

(ISBN: 978-1-4724-2291-0, ISBN Short: 9781472422910)

Would you like to review it? Information is at http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=2253

The Egyptian Oracle Project, Ancient Ceremony in Augmented Reality

Editor(s): Robyn Gillam, Jeffrey Jacobson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

I contributed a book chapter.

  • Introduction (Robyn Gillam, York University, Canada, and Jeffrey Jacobson, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, USA)

PART I The Egyptian Oracle

  • Chapter 1: Historical Foundations (Robyn Gillam)
  • Chapter 2: Cross-Cultural Analysis (Robyn Gillam)
  • Chapter 3: The Virtual Temple of Horus and Its Egyptian Prototypes (Robyn Gillam)

PART II The Performance

  • Chapter 4: Technical Description (Jeffrey Jacobson)
  • Chapter 5: Mixed Reality Theater and the Oracle (Josephine Anstey and David Pape, University of Buffalo, New York, USA)
  • Chapter 6: Educational Purpose and Results (Jeffrey Jacobson)

PART III The Technology

  • Chapter 7: Puppetry and Virtual Theater (Lisa Aimee Sturz, Red Herring Puppets, Asheville, North Carolina, USA)
  • Chapter 8: Introduction to Virtual Heritage (Erik Champion, Curtin University, Perth, Australia)
  • Chapter 9: The Virtual Temple: Construction and Use (Jeffrey Jacobson)
  • Conclusion (Robyn Gillam and Jeffrey Jacobson)

See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/the-egyptian-oracle-project-9781474249263/ OR http://www.amazon.com/The-Egyptian-Oracle-Project-Bloomsbury/dp/1474234151

Peopled Virtual Heritage (Worlds)

The youtube link is to Colleen Morgan’s presentation at York University 20 January 2015. The John Robb article (Towards a critical Otziography: inventing prehistoric bodies) she referred to is an excellent read (and just after I could well have used this in my upcoming book! Dramatic Sigh). But what has really got me thinking are the questions at the end on representing or creating people in virtual environments especially for archaeology and the critique by someone at 49:50 minutes in (an architect? I had trouble hearing him).

My thoughts:

  • The “peopling” in architectural presentations is not meant to reveal the building in all its architectural glory, but to sell the building independently of how it will actually be used. There is an old architectural joke that new hospital buildings would be perfect if they didn’t have people using them.
  • Architects and archaeologists so often seem to have different approaches or understanding (I noticed this when at UCL in 2003 or so when both understood vomitorium differently).
  • The notion of a virtual environment as a process rather than a presentation seems lost.
  • Archaeological VR/VEs can show the process and systematic differences between our world and another world (of past perception). Imagine putting on a virtual medieval suit of armour. It is really really heavy, and uncomfortable and inflexible. To you. To a knight say 7 centuries ago it may well be such a badge of honour and a functionally superior life saving device that it seems to weigh less. Plus they will have spent years lifting it as a squire and wearing it, they were probably balls of bone and muscular. So should the simulated weight be the weight you would experience or the weight that a trained knight would experience? I would argue, both.
  • When emailing with Bond University PhD student and game designer Jakub Majewski (exploring roleplaying worlds such as Skyrim), we differed on the extent of immersivity we preferred. For heritage purposes I did not value it over task ability, and I would shift to third person view so I could see and navigate more easily. While Jakub wanted to stay in first person view at all times for full roleplaying-immersivity. So I/we may not be designing games per se. We may not fully want to. That said, I can see the value of avatar-using virtual worlds, and I did briefly list some reasons in my book chapter on narrative. But it is a chapter or book on its own (or perhaps an edited book of cross-commenting essays). So much to ponder further!

NB there was also a reference to my use of NPCs in Adobe Atmosphere, as virtual (talking) furniture! Well I could have them move but in my already streamlined 3D models of the Mayan city Palenque Mexico,, running inside Internet Explorer was taking the 2001-2003 technology to breaking point! You could bump the NPC though..

When we ported the three environments to one environment using UT2004 in 2005, we did not have problem and there were NPCs scampering all over the place. I should try and see if I can get this old environment working in UT2004 then porting to UDK..

“Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage” Ashgate Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities series

I have written Critical Gaming: Interactive History And Virtual Heritage (Ashgate Publishing, Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities series ), it has now gone to their production team and I hope it will be published roughly mid 2015.

Introduction: Critical Gaming: Interactive History And Virtual Heritage can be seen as a collection of chapters designed to provoke thought and discussion, or it can be seen and used as separate chapters that may help class debate in courses dealing with the Digital Humanities, Game Studies (especially in the areas of Serious Games and Game-based Learning), or aspects of Virtual Heritage. While there are very few books in this intersecting area, the range of topics that could be investigated and debated is huge. My primary target groups of readers are those academics and students who wish to investigate how games and virtual environments can be used in teaching and research to critique issues and topics in the humanities. In particular I want to investigate re-occurring broad issues in the design, playtesting and evaluation of serious games/ playful learning/game-based learning for interactive history and for virtual heritage.

Chapter 1: Digital Humanities And The Limits of Text provides a reasoned argument for the preponderance of text-based research in the digital humanities but argues for the importance and relevance of non-text based projects and three-dimensional media that augments rather than replaces text. It also proposes ways of improving classroom knowledge via spatial media.

Chapter 2: Game-based Learning And The Digital Humanities asks if there should there be a manifesto and singular definition of ‘game’? Should we be more open-minded in defining games and applying them totally or in part to historical and heritage-based simulations? Do definitions of ‘games as systems’ or as ‘procedural rhetoric’ offer enough guidance in developing and evaluating historical simulations and virtual heritage projects? In answering this question, the chapter includes suggestions gleaned from three case studies.

Chapter 3: Virtual Heritage focuses on intersections between Virtual Reality, Games and Digital Humanities. Is Virtual Reality still relevant? I argue that the increasing power and superior accessibility of computer games has already absorbed much of traditional Virtual Reality. Has Virtual Reality merged into games, is Virtual Reality within the financial and technical reach of non-expert users? If so which Virtual Reality techniques have become mainstream and accessible? What is the future of Virtual Reality and how will it affect Digital Humanities, are there specific areas we should focus on?

Chapter 4: Game-based History And Historical Simulations surveys games used for history and historical learning. Which theories can help us design and critique for history and heritage-based projects? Serious games research typically use modified computer games as virtual learning environments. Virtual heritage projects typically aim to provide three-dimensional interactive digital environments that aid the understanding of new cultures and languages rather than merely transfer learning terms and strategies from static prescriptive media such as books. As an intersection between the two fields, game-based historical learning aims to provide ways in which the technology, interactivity, or cultural conventions of computer gaming can help afford the cultural understanding of the self, of the past, or of others with mindsets quite different to our own.

Chapter 5: Virtual Heritage And Digital Culture covers definitions and major issues in Virtual Heritage. I propose six general aims for virtual heritage and I suggest three key concepts, inhabited placemaking, cultural presence and cultural significance. I also suggest objectives that a scholarly infrastructure should undertake to improve the field.

Chapter 6: Worlds, Roles And Rituals explores the nature, purpose and attributes of worlds, role-playing and rituals. Why are definitions of world so difficult to find? How can worlds be realised via digital simulations, can role-playing in computer games be developed further? Who should be able to read and interpret and perform rituals and why? Part of this chapter was initially published as an essay in the International Journal of Role Playing (Champion, 2009) and the passage has been considerably modified.

Chapter 7: Joysticks of Death, Violence And Morality is a theoretical attempt to outline types of violence in computer games and develop a short framework for types of interaction in virtual heritage projects. What is violence, how is it portrayed in games and are there particular issues in virtual simulations? This chapter sketches out both factors leading to violence in digital heritage projects and reasons involving their widespread occurrence. Finally I will suggest alternatives to violent interaction when applied to digital heritage projects.

Chapter 8: Intelligent Agents, Drama and Cinematic Narrative discusses Selmer Bringsjord’s ideas on interactive narrative and whether we can provide alternatives that help develop dramatically compelling interactive narrative. Why has storytelling been so difficult? Why is the Star Trek Holodeck so widely cited but no one has come close to building anything remotely similar?

Chapter 9: Biofeedback, Space And Place discusses ways in which biofeedback and brain controlled interfaces and theories of empathy and embodiment can be used to develop games and simulations for history and heritage based games. How can we better integrate new research into the body and the brain and recent technologies that incorporate the senses or further integrate recent technologies with the environment?

Chapter 10: Applying Critical Thinking And Critical Play summarizes the arguments and findings of the chapters and proposes a quick way of validating critical theories about gaming. Can game-related projects and teaching leverage critical thinking skills? The chapter includes a sample checklist to determine whether a critical position and argument about gaming has merit.

cfp: Digital Heritage: 3D representationMay 21-22, 2015 Aarhus Denmark

Digital Heritage is an annual conference hosted by the Centre for Digital Heritage. This year, the conference will be taking place at the newly reopened Moesgaard Museum, Aarhus, Denmark. The theme will be ‘3D representation in knowledge production’ by means of which we wish to enhance and solidify the presence of this new tool within digital heritage research. We are particularly keen to encourage presentations which relate to the scientific application of 3D in Digital Heritage research moving beyond visualization and dissemination.

http://conferences.au.dk/digitalheritage/

Cheap registration, free wine reception, the venue is the new and stunning Moesgaard Museum, what more can you ask for? Oh yes deadline is 19 January 2015. And yes I may be in Europe just before then for a conference, DiGRA in Germany but there are only 200 places and my university won’t open again until early January so you may just have to attend and present for me..:)

PS guess who wrote the application for Aarhus to join the international centre network for digital heritage!

cfp: Digital Heritage 2015, 28 Sep-2 October, Granada Spain

Digital Heritage 2015, 28 September – 2 October @ Granada, Spain

http://digitalheritage2015.org/

Digital Heritage 2015, jointly with the affiliated Conferences and exhibitions which are held under one common management and registration, invite you to participate and contribute to the second international forum for the dissemination and exchange of cutting-edge scientific knowledge on theoretical, generic and applied areas of digital heritage. A federated event of the leading scientific meetings in information technology for heritage, the Congress will bring VSMM, Eurographics GCH, Arqueologica2.0, Archaeovirtual, Digital Art Week and special events from CAA, CIPA, Space2Place, ICOMOS ICIP, and multiple others together in one venue with a prestigious joint publication. A ground-breaking public display of cutting edge digital heritage projects will also grace the conference venue at two museums: the museum Parque de las Ciencias de Andalucía and the museum of the Memory of Andalusia.

Important Dates

LengthAbstract (up to 300 words)Deadline for SubmissionNotification of AcceptanceCamera Ready Receipt
Full Papersup to 8 pages15th March1st April1st June15th July
Short Papersup to 4 pages26th April3rd May17th June15th July
Special Sessions
Tutorialsup to 8 pages15th March1st April1st June15th July
Workshopsup to 8 pages15th March1st April1st June15th July
Panelsup to 8 pages15th March1st April1st June15th July
Exhibitions & Demosup to 3 pages12th April19th April5th June15th July

Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites, Arkansas 2015 and Los Angeles 2016

The NEH Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, “Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites,” was recommended for funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The principle investigators are Associate Professor Alyson Gil and Dr Lisa Snyder.
I will be a guest lecturer, the first 1 week workshop will be hosted at the Arkansas State University around 8-14 June 2015, the 2nd event, a 3 day symposium, will be hosted at UCLA, (Los Angeles), 6-9 June 2016.

Summary: A one week institute with a follow up workshop held over two summers, hosted by Arkansas State University and the University of California, Los Angeles, to consider the theoretical and ethical issues associated with three dimensional modeling of cultural heritage sites and objects.

Guest Lecturers include:
Diane Favro UCLA
Bernie Frischer Indiana University
Chris Johanson UCLA
Maurizio Forte Duke University
Ruth Hawkins Arkansas State University
Angel Nieves Hamilton College
John Clarke University of Texas at Austin
Erik Champion, Curtin University (am I the only one from outside of the States?)

 

UNESCO chair in Cultural Heritage and Visualisation

I am in the process of applying for the above chair.
If any one has had experience in applying for or running one, or has words of advice to offer, or wants to send me a letter of recommendation or support or wants to be involved, please let me know!

Here is a draft precis.

This proposal will consolidate and disseminate 3D models and virtual environments of world heritage sites, host virtual heritage examples, tutorials, tools and technologies so heritage groups and classrooms could learn to develop and maintain 3D models and virtual environments, and act as advisor on policy formulation for the use, evaluation and application of these 3D digital environments and digital models for use in the classroom and for wider visualisation principles.
We propose to create a Cultural Heritage and Visualisation network, we would use and advise on 3D models of World Heritage Sites, how 3D models can be employed in teaching and research, investigate ways to host both the digital models and related paradata and publications, and transfer formats (for desktop use, mobile computing etc.), ideally with UNESCO, and leverage Curtin and partner institutes like the HIVE and integrate with our new visualisation courses in the Humanities (preferably at Masters level).

Context and justification (300 words)
Analyse trends and issues surrounding the theme of the proposal. What difference will the project make in terms of capacity-building, transfer of knowledge, and strengthening links between universities/other higher education institutions and development bodies?
Why is this necessary?
Professor Hal Thwaites, longtime President of VSMM, wrote in “Chapter 17: Digital Heritage: What Happens When We Digitize Everything”
In the very near future some critical issues will need to be addressed; increased accessibility to (and sharing of) heritage data, consistent interface design for widespread public use and re-presentations of work, the formalization of a digital heritage database, establishment of a global infrastructure, institutionalized, archival standards for digital heritage and most importantly the on-going curation, of work forward in time as the technology evolves so that our current digital, heritage projects will not be lost to future generations. We cannot afford to have our digital heritage disappearing faster than the real heritage or the sites it seeks to ‘preserve’ otherwise all of our technological advances, creative interpretations, visualizations and efforts will have been in vain.[1]
Trends at EU level are to create archives and digital humanities infrastructures but 3D models have been left behind, and the major related EU project, CARARE, created a common library format of 3D models but they were trapped inside PDF format so people could not modify and develop their own content, and the model did not dynamically link to the scholarly information that made the model possible.
This project would create a free online introductory to the field of virtual heritage, provide free online 3D models for use by the public, and create policies and guidelines for integrating digital heritage sites and models with library and community media and related information infrastructures. Web traffic, user feedback and user web forum information would be published. Plus the educational material developed would help visualisation courses incorporate heritage material into their educational programmes.

[1] Thwaites, Harold. “Digital Heritage: What Happens When We Digitize Everything?.” Visual Heritage in the Digital Age. Springer London, 2013. 327-348.

What makes for a good critical argument in computer gaming?

Here are 10 working ideas/guidelines:

Ideally a critical position / argument about computer games should be:

  1. Falsifiable and verifiable. Not such a common feature in the Humanities, and not always relevant, but in my opinion a good argument should be saying where and when it is contestable, and where and when it can be proven or disproven.
  2. Extensible and scalable. We should be able to add to it, extend it, apply it to more research questions and research areas or add it ot current research findings or critical frameworks.
  3. Reconfigurable. Components are more useful than take it or leave it positions.
  4. Is useful even if proven wrong in terms of data, findings, methods, or argument (possibly this heuristic should be combined with number 3).
  5.      Helpful to the current and future design of computer games, and has potential to forecast future changes in design, deployment or acceptance.
  6. Not in danger of conflating describing computer games with prescribing how computer games should be. Several of the arguments cited in this book appear to make that mistake.
  7. Understands the distinction between methods and methodology, the selection or rejection of methods should always be examined and communicated.
  8. Is lucid and honest about the background, context, and motivations as factors driving it.
  9. Aiming for validity and soundness of argument.
  10. Attempting to provide in a longterm and accessible way for the data, ouptut, and results of any experiment or survey to be examinable by others.

February 2014 talks in California

Update: http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/arf.html?event_ID=74777&date=2014-02-11

Schedule of my visit to the San Francisco Bay Area:

1) Monday 10 February, 2014. 4pm-6.00pm. Kroeber Hall, Gifford Room.

Title: What is Virtual Heritage?

Virtual heritage could be viewed as a hybrid marriage of Virtual Reality and cultural heritage. Stone and Ojika (2000) defined it as

“[It is]…the use of computer-based interactive technologies to record, preserve, or recreate artifacts, sites and actors of historic, artistic, religious, and cultural significance and to deliver the results openly to a global audience in such a way as to provide formative educational experiences through electronic manipulations of time and space.”

The above is an interesting definition but I wish to modify it slightly, for it does not explicitly cover the preservation, communication and dissemination of beliefs, rituals, and other cultural behaviours and activities. We also need to consider authenticity of reproduction, scholastic rigor, and sensitivity to the needs of both audience and to the needs of the shareholders of the original and remaining content. No doubt this is due to the many issues in the presentation of culture. One is the definition of culture itself, the second issue is to understand how culture is transmitted, and the third is how to transmit the local situated cultural knowledge to people from another culture. In the case of virtual heritage, a fourth also arises, exactly how could this specific cultural knowledge be transmitted digitally?

Although I personally believe that fundamental issues of culture, place and inhabitation are still to be successfully addressed (Champion, 2014); computer games offer interesting opportunities to the audience, designer, and critic. They are no longer single player, shallow interfaces. They are turning into multivalent, multi-dimensional, user-directed collaborative virtual worlds. Commercial games are often bundled with world creation technology and network capability that is threatening to overtake the creation and presentation displays of expensive and complex specialist VR systems. In this talk I will not suggest that computer games are revolutionary, only that they are potentially changing the way we think, act, communicate, and feel.

 References

Stone, Robert J., & Takeo, Ojika. (2000). Virtual Heritage: What Next? . Multimedia, IEEE, 7(2), 73–74.

Champion, E. (2014). History and Heritage in Virtual Worlds. In M. Grimshaw (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2) Tuesday 11 February 10.30-12.30pm. 2224 Piedmont Avenue, MACTiA lab (room 12)

Informal Workshop/Brainstorm/Discussion with Dr. Erik Champion: Games – serious or otherwise – for and about archaeology and cultural heritage

Please feel free to drop in to this workshop and brainstorming session where archaeologists with Erik Champion will work through some ideas and plans for the design of computer games that are based in data of archaeological research and cultural heritage management and the interpretations of the past.

Starting point: Champion, Erik (2011) Playing with the Past. Springer, London.

3)Wednesday 12 February, 2014. 12noon-1pm. Archaeological Research Facility Lunchtime series: 2251 Building, Room 101.

Title: Heritage Via Games and Game Mods

In this informal talk, I will discuss classroom experiences (both good and bad) gleaned from teaching game design, especially work by students to develop serious games using historical events or mythological happenings.

My central argument is that despite apparent initial barriers, both students and teachers (and academics in general) can learn from the actual process of game design, and from watching people play. Theorists learn about the entangled issues of game design, the politics of user testing, and the designer fallacy (I designed the game, I know how best to experience it, if the audience can’t work it out there is something wrong with them, not the design). Students, in turn, can begin to understand (perhaps) how theory, good theory, can help open eyes, inspire new design and turn description into prescription. There are of course even more dilemmas and difficulties for visualizing and interacting with history and with heritage, and with moving from easily accessible commercial games and open source games, to larger Virtual Reality centres, planetariums and museums, but it has been done, with some significant successes.

This talk will touch on and move past projects mentioned in the following and free to download book: Champion, Erik (Ed.). (2012). Game Mods: Design, Theory and Criticism. Pittsburgh: ETC Press. URL: http://press.etc.cmu.edu/content/game-mods

Off-campus

4) Thursday 13 February, 2014. 12noon. Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES) Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey.

TITLE:  Cultural Heritage and Surround Displays, VR and Games for the Humanities OR Immersive Digital Humanities: When The Motion Tracker is Mightier Than The Pen

How are scholars using surround displays, stereographics, gaming technologies and new peripherals to disseminate new ways of viewing, interacting with, and understanding humanities content, and in particular, cultural heritage? Which issues in cultural heritage and interacting with historical content need to be kept in mind by VR experts when working with humanities scholars? And are there key concepts and research developments in the VR field that humanities scholars should be more aware of? Or are the fields of interaction design and (digital) humanities converging?

NB Public talk but guests have to be pre-approved as it is at the Naval Postgraduate School.

CFP: Heritage and digital humanities, Grenoble 10-12.6.2014

This interdisciplinary and international conference aims at gathering and confronting two notions that are currently quite fashionable: heritage and digital humanities. Heritage, to be understood as goods shared by a community and founding its cultural identity, is to be taken in its widest meaning. Digital humanities offer methods, practices and numerical tools serving traditional research objects, but also new ones and leading to new theoretical and analytical approaches. We shall question the specific contribution of digital humanities to the development and dissemination of a given heritage. What can be the advantage of digital technologies with regards to more traditional approaches, whether it is museographical, ethnologic, literary, linguistic, etc.?

Colloque interdisciplinaire en Lettres, Arts et Sciences humaines, organisé par Cécile Meynard (MSH Alpes/Université Stendhal), Thomas Lebarbé (Université Stendhal) et Sandra Costa (Université Pierre-Mendès-France), les 10 et 12 juin 2014.
1 page abstract due before 20 January 2014.
URL: http://www.u-grenoble3.fr/version-francaise/recherche-valorisation/evenements/appel-a-communication-colloque-patrimoine-et-humanites-numeriques–183142.kjsp

“Cultural Heritage in Immersive Displays” talk at the HIVE

On Thursday Dr Jeffrey Jacobson of http://publicVR.org will give a talk at 1PM in the HIVE. A new visualisation facility at John Curtin Art Gallery, Curtin University, Perth

He is one of four visiting fellows who arrived last week to work with me on, projects grants and papers.

I’ll add a video link later of his work with game engines and archaeology and puppeteers.