Category Archives: Digital Humanities

Virtual Heritage: How Could It Be Ethical?

Academic, book chapter, Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage,

Abstract

Draft of latest book chapter (before revisions) by the editors. Now onto the next book chapter!

Ranging from modified adaption of commercial games (game mods) to multi-million-dollar 3D visualizations and web-based projects, virtual heritage projects have showcased cutting-edge technology and provided insight into understanding past cultures. Virtual heritage has the potential to safeguard unique cultural treasures from the ravages of war and neglect, with interaction techniques to communicate knowledge across time and linguistic divides.

Despite these advantages, at its core, Virtual Heritage (virtual reality and related immersive and interactive digital technology applied to cultural heritage) implies something not real, but an illusion simulated or artificially projected. It typically relies on highly specialized capture, rending and hosting technology created by highly trained individuals, running on high-powered equipment manufactured at great environmental cost. And the original material it simulates can be sacred, stolen, or contested. There are consequences and ethical implications for this illusory but expensive medium of cultural heritage (and, typically, “cultural heritage” means other peoples’ cultures), whether complicitly generated or not. While the research field of virtual heritage is several decades old, its specific ethical issues have not been extensively addressed (Hepworth and Church, 2018, de Broglie, 2018, Frischer, 2019), and specific challenges are not often covered by, say, digital archaeological ethics discussion (Dennis, 2021, Dennis, 2020).

To provide an overview of these ethical issues, four issues will be discussed in this chapter. Who determines the content, cultural ownership and overall decision-making; how both the depiction of personal or sacred assets and traces of people no longer with us, obsessions with photorealism rather than the complex topic of authenticity, and the dangerous allure of gamification; what needs to be preserved and related environmental issues; where and when the audience should be involved, motivated, and their feedback fed back into current and future projects.

Keywords: Cultural heritage, virtual heritage, virtual reality, serious games.

Immersive Challenges for Museums & Heritage Sites

3D and game editors, Announcements, augmented reality, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, Web GIS

I will give a talk tonight via Zoom to UniSA IVE colleagues on the above topic.

Time: 4PM

2022 IVE Research Seminar Series

Please join our next IVE Seminar.

Presenter:


Prof. Erik Champion

Enterprise Fellow, UniSA Creative


Title:
Immersive Challenges for Museums and Heritage Sites


Abstract:

This talk will cover recent and persistent challenges facing museums, practical issues with the implementation of virtual reality, games and gamification, and some case studies exploring potential solutions, particularly in the area of cultural heritage.

Bio:

Erik Champion is currently Enterprise Fellow (Architecture, Creative) at the University of South Australia; Emeritus Professor at Curtin University; Honorary Research Professor at ANU; and Honorary Research Fellow at UWA. He was recently a chief investigator on 4 Australian Research Council grants, Curtin University’s first UNESCO Chair (of Cultural Visualisation and Heritage) and Visualisation theme leader and Steering Committee member of the Curtin Institute for Computation. 

https://people.unisa.edu.au/Erik.Champion

Date & Time: 5 April 2022 (Tuesday) 4pm (Adelaide ACST — Australian Central Standard Time UMT +9 hours 30 minutes)

Where: Zoom

One Aspect of Place is Missing?

Academic, digital heritage, Digital Humanities,

I enjoyed reading through the recent “Geographies of Place in Digital Art History” written by people I know (and one I have worked with and written papers with). But as an intellectual exercise, do you see anything missing from the concept of place as stated in the article?

Geographies of Place in Digital Art History

Sarah Middle, Ryan Horne, David A. McMeekin, Chiara Zuanni, and Alex Butterworth International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 2022 16:1, 94-109

CAA 2022, Oxford

Academic, archaeology, augmented reality, Conference, Digital Humanities, heritage, Virtual Reality

This year the Computing Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Conference is running in person in Oxford, UK and virtually. CAA2022 will be held 8-11 August 2022.

If you are interested, CAA2022’s first session is calling for papers on cultural presence. Elaine contacted me about this for the last CAA (that was postponed) and it sounds very interesting so, hopefully, some of you can make it. You can also submit individual papers to CAA2022.

S01: iN Deep: Cultural Presence in Immersive Educational Experiences (Other)

Elaine A Sullivan, University of California Santa Cruz

Sara Perry, Museum of London Archaeology

Paola Derudas, Lund University

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR) technologies are increasingly incorporated into university classrooms and public education in the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums). The potential to use these technologies to engage students and the public with archaeological knowledge (such as site reconstructions, artefacts, or re-imagining the activities of past peoples) is exciting, but these forms of representation, including the use of individual headsets, tablets, and personal mobile phones, come with particular challenges. In his book Critical Gaming (2015), Eric Champion argued that virtual realities should express ‘cultural presence,’ the meaning and significance of a time, place, or object to people of the past.

Hyper-reality, photogrammetry, and ever-increasing levels of ‘accuracy’ in 3D models do not inherently convey aspects of cultural significance and meaning, and many VR/AR/XR experiences fall dramatically short of the goal of expressing the importance of past places and things to
their original communities. Emphasis on technological and (especially) hardware innovation often deflects attention from critically engaging with questions of meaning-making.


This panel asks those creating or intensely using Archaeology VR/AR/XR to focus NOT on software, hardware, or the latest technical innovations, but on how we as archaeologists can better design, create, or curate experiences that inspire and educate students and the public on the cultural importance of archaeological spaces, objects or themes.

What are successful techniques to aid a visitor to better understand the original context of an object now placed in a (often far off) museum or gallery? How can university instructors incorporate the (problematically individual) headset or mobile experiences into pedagogy to provide meaningful and active student learning? How can complex data be usefully layered or curated so that multiple types of museum visitors or classes could find it informative and emotionally resonant? How can we turn these increasingly popular technologies into serious spaces of cultural learning and curiosity, moving beyond the initial ‘wow’ factor

Format
Instead of traditional 20 minute talks, we request that participants present 8-10 minutes in depth on one VR/AR/XR experience they have designed and/or utilized in a university or GLAM setting (not a general review of multiple types of work). We ask participants to present and explain aspects of design and interaction and their intent in that experience; or, if the content was not designed by the presenter, how content was incorporated, curated, or enhanced for the classroom or GLAM experience.

Specifically, we ask presenters to think thoughtfully and critically about how we might collectively learn to use these technologies in more informed ways, including: What types of interactions with students or the public have shown promise, and how might we build on those successes? What practices have not worked, and how might we learn from our failures? What particular aspects of archaeological and cultural heritage knowledge are best emphasized in the VR/AR/XR experience? What is key to re-using content created by others, including content created by non-archaeologists?

The session will be divided into four sections:

  • 1st group of presentations, ~five presenters (10 minutes per presentation)
  • a ~30 minute ‘hands-on’ period** where participants and the audience will be able to engage/interact directly with the presented content from both presentation groups
  • 2nd group of presentations, ~five presenters (10 minutes per presentation)
  • concluded by a ~30-minute Q&A session for the full group of presenters and audience

We hope this format will allow the audience to engage directly with the content before opening up the session for questions and comments. The goal is to turn this session into a workshop that helps all present work more critically with VR/AR/XR content and improve how we communicate scholarly information at the university and GLAM setting.

**We therefore ask participants to commit to bringing their discussed content uploaded or downloadable in some format that can be shared directly with others: including (but not limited to) VR headsets, Google cardboard, AR apps pre-installed on tablets or smart phones, etc.

References
Champion, E. (2015). Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

3D, Maps and DBPedia

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Digital Humanities, infrastructure, Linked Open Data, PhD, visualisation, Web GIS

The UNESCO Chair of Cultural Heritage and Visualisation (10/2016 – 09/2020) project at https://unesco-chv.curtin.edu.au will be shut down in June 2022.

Before then feel free to look at the online Australian map platform with 3D models, Linked Open Data, DBpedia, open data etc… https://unesco-chv.curtin.edu.au/mapplatform but please allow 20-30 seconds for some of the larger 3D models to load.

It was developed for Ikrom Nishanbaev’s PhD project, (supervised with Dr David McMeekin), the thesis by publication has just been successfully reviewed.

Thank you to Ikrom, David, the GIS and cultural heritage people who provided feedback and the reviewers.

Interesting to note Ikrom started the PhD in humanities then when I left Curtin University he moved to Science and Engineering. So it is arguably a truly interdisciplinary Digital Humanities project.

One of his papers received an award. The papers are listed at:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vmha0GcAAAAJ&hl=en

PhD scholarships at UniSA in South Australia

Announcements, Digital Humanities, heritage, job, PhD, serious games

There are two PhD scholarships at the University of South Australia, in Built Environment and Design, that may interest Australian or NZ citizens or Australian permanent residents:

https://www.unisa.edu.au/research/degrees/research-projects/#design-thinking-for-supporting-sustainable-bu

Details of the supervisors are listed against the projects.

No, I am not a supervisor for either, I am currently helping PhD students at my last university submit their theses (two passed so far, three to go!)

To offer a PhD scholarship-supported project at UniSA, I have to propose and have accepted a project, then students can apply. For self-funded PhD study, students can apply straight away.

Cultural Presence Session proposed for CAA2022 Oxford

Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Conference, Digital Humanities, Symposium, ,

Associate Professor Elaine Sullivan will propose a session on cultural presence (based on my writing in Critical Gaming) but also on wider issues of virtual heritage, for CAA2022, Oxford, 8-11 August (physically and virtually). It was approved for CAA2020 Oxford but the conference was postponed due to COVID, and she will need to reapply. However, if you are interested please contact her via her University of California-Santa Cruz Faculty page.

Details of her session S26 (specific details may be changed for 2022) are at https://2020.caaconference.org/sessions/ (N.B. I updated my definition of Cultural Presence in the journal article Culturally Significant Presence in Single-player Computer Games (JOCCH 2020).

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR) technologies are increasingly incorporated into university classrooms and public education in the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums). The potential to use these technologies to engage students and the public with archaeological knowledge (such as site reconstructions, artefacts, or re-imagining the activities of past peoples) is exciting, but
these forms of representation, including the use of individual headsets, tablets, and personal mobile phones, come with particular challenges.

In his book Critical Gaming (2015), (free PDF) Erik Champion argued that virtual realities should express ‘cultural presence,’ the meaning and significance of a time, place, or object to people of the past.

Hyper-reality, photogrammetry, and ever-increasing levels of ‘accuracy’ in 3D models do not inherently convey aspects of cultural significance and meaning, and many VR/AR/XR experiences fall dramatically short of the goal of expressing the importance of past places and things to their original communities.

Emphasis on technological and (especially) hardware innovation often deflects attention from critically engaging with questions of meaning-making. This panel asks those creating or intensely using Archaeology VR/AR/XR to focus NOT on software, hardware, or the latest technical innovations, but on how we as archaeologists
can better design, create, or curate experiences that inspire and educate students and the public on the cultural importance of archaeological spaces, objects or themes.

What are successful techniques to aid a visitor to better understand the original context of an object now placed in a (often far off) museum or gallery? How can university instructors incorporate the (problematically individual) headset or mobile experiences into pedagogy to provide meaningful and active student learning? How can complex data be usefully layered or curated so that multiple types of museum visitors or classes could find it informative and emotionally resonant? How can we turn these increasingly popular technologies into serious spaces of cultural learning and curiosity, moving beyond the initial ‘wow’ factor?


Format
Instead of traditional 20 minute talks, we request that participants present 8-10 minutes in depth on one VR/AR/XR experience they have designed and/or utilized in a university or GLAM setting (not a general review of multiple types of work).

We ask participants to present and explain aspects of design and interaction and their intent in that experience; or, if the content was not designed by the presenter, how content was
incorporated, curated, or enhanced for the classroom or GLAM experience. Specifically, we ask presenters to think thoughtfully and critically about how we might collectively learn to use these technologies in more informed ways, including: What types of interactions with
students or the public have shown promise, and how might we build on those successes?

What practices have not worked, and how might we learn from our failures? What particular aspects of archaeological and cultural heritage knowledge are best emphasized in the VR/AR/XR experience? What is key to re-using content created by others, including content created by non-archaeologists?

new book project in screen tourism and landscapes

Academic, augmented reality, Book, book chapter, Digital Humanities, game, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

With two fine co-editors our edited book proposal on the above topic has been through the review process and judged fit for publication with helpful and positive comments.

It still has to pass the publisher editorial meeting in January but our editor there does not see any problems. Given we still need formal approval, I hope to announce more details in a month or so. We do still need a chapter or more on Asia but otherwise I am very happy with our authors and draft chapters. Congratulations everyone!

CAA2022 potential session

Academic, archaeology, Conference, Digital Humanities, heritage, infrastructure, Presentation, workshop

Despite COVID, lack of travel resources etc, (especially to the UK from Australia), I’ve been thinking about proposing a panel/session at CAA2022 about “what is lost in the digits”-which elements, features, beliefs or interpretations are left behind or overlooked when scanning / digitally simulating…and what we can or should do about it (with a nod to @EthanWatrall). A short twitter discussion (with many points by Anton Scoetzee) followed.

So, if I think it is feasible, I will apply to CAA2022 before 17 January and post the proposal here. I can see it morphing into an open access, dialogue-friendly edited book.

https://2022.caaconference.org/call-for-sessions/

Ph.D. finally added to the University repository

Academic, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, virtual heritage

I deposited my PhD thesis (Evaluating Cultural Learning in Virtual Environments, 2006) at the University of Melbourne but they only just now added it to their new system, here it is:

https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/294933

There is still a great deal of opportunity for research on contextual interactive immersion in virtual heritage environments. The general failure of virtual environment technology to create engaging and educational experiences may be attributable not just to deficiencies in technology or in visual fidelity, but also to a lack of contextual and performative-based interaction, such as that found in games. This thesis will suggest improvements will result from more research on the below issues:

1. Place versus Cyberspace: What creates a sensation of place (as a cultural site) in a virtual environment in contradistinction to a sensation of a virtual environment as a collection of objects and spaces?

2. Cultural Presence versus Social Presence and Presence: Which factors help immerse people spatially and thematically into a cultural learning experience?

3. Realism versus Interpretation: Does an attempt to perfect fidelity to sources and to realism improve or hinder the cultural learning experience?

4. Education versus Entertainment: Does an attempt to make the experience engaging improve or hinder the cultural learning experience?

This doctoral thesis outlines a theoretical definition of place, culture, and presence that may become a matrix for virtual environment design as well as a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of appropriating game-style interaction to enhance engagement. A virtual environment was built using Adobe Atmosphere to test whether cultural understanding and engagement can be linked to the type of interaction offered. The thesis also includes a survey of evaluation mechanisms that may be specifically suitable for virtual heritage environments. In its review of appropriate methodology, the thesis suggests new terms and criteria to assess the contextual appropriateness of various evaluation methods, and provides seven schematic examples of game-style plot devices that lend themselves to evaluation. The test-bed is the evaluation of a virtual archaeology project in Palenqué Mexico using theories of cultural immersion as well as computer game technology and techniques. The case study of Palenqué involved five types of evaluation specifically chosen to assess cultural awareness and understanding gained from different forms of interaction in a virtual heritage environment.

Keywords

virtual reality in architecture; imaging systems in archaeology; computers and civilization


New Open-access Article on Mixed Reality

Academic, Digital Humanities, Open Access, PhD, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , , , ,

A new open-access article by Mr Mafkereseb Bekele, a PhD student at Curtin University and his three supervisors (myself, Dr David McMeekin and Dr Hafizur Rahaman): “The Influence of Collaborative and Multi-Modal Mixed Reality: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage” https://mdpi.com/1390992#mdpimti via @MDPIOpenAccess

Studies in the virtual heritage (VH) domain identify collaboration (social interaction), engagement, and a contextual relationship as key elements of interaction design that influence users’ experience and cultural learning in VH applications. The purpose of this study is to validate whether collaboration (social interaction), engaging experience, and a contextual relationship enhance cultural learning in a collaborative and multi-modal mixed reality (MR) heritage environment. To this end, we have designed and implemented a cloud-based collaborative and multi-modal MR application aiming at enhancing user experience and cultural learning in museums. A conceptual model was proposed based on collaboration, engagement, and relationship in the context of MR experience. The MR application was then evaluated at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum by experts, archaeologists, and curators from the gallery and the Western Australian Museum. Questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and observation were used to collect data. The results suggest that integrating collaborative and multi-modal interaction methods with MR technology facilitates enhanced cultural learning in VH.

Keywords: mixed reality; virtual heritage; collaborative interaction; multi-modal interaction; engagement; cultural learning

Living Digital Heritage 2021

Academic, Announcements, archaeology, augmented reality, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, infrastructure, serious games, Symposium, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

I was given the honour of opening Living Digital Heritage conference with a keynote today and full congratulations to Frederik Hardtke and the other organizers at Macquarie University’s Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage & Environment (twitter @cachemq) in Sydney, a great range of papers, all presented on Zoom. Finishing Sunday 7 November (when I fly to South Australia to take on a new role so I may miss a little of it).

If you are interested you may be able to follow via the above twitter links, I don’t know if they still accept registration but it was free.

Invited Talk in Austria (virtually)

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

I’m giving a virtual lecture for DHGraz Wednesday 6 October 2021 (tomorrow): “We’re delighted to welcome @nzerik this Wednesday, who will open our Lunchtime Lecture series with an online talk on “Games as Serious Visualisation Tools For Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage and Immersive Literacy”
More info: https://informationsmodellierung.uni-graz.at/de/neuigkeiten/detail/article/online-lunchtime-lecture-30.-juni-2021-1200-uhr/

Not recorded but slides are here https://www.slideshare.net/nzerik/games-xr-dhgraz-talk-06102021

My trip to Finland

Digital Humanities, , ,

Thanks to the University of Jyväsklyä for inviting me here to central Finland. This is a summary of my time here and upcoming calendar events:

31/8 arrive, 3 plus hour train to Jyväsklyä.

1/9 ARC Cultural Data Engine meeting (Melbourne).

8/9 ARC Cultural Data Engine meeting (Melbourne).

9/9 Departmental staff meeting.

10/9 Virtual talk, University of Hong Kong.

14/9 Talk and workshop (photo above) at Digi & Game Center centre.

15/9 Invited questioner, ERC trial for grant interview process.

20-22/9 Two day stay at Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle. Museums.

–This week finish book chapter on difficult heritage-done.

28/9 UTS Zoom meeting-mentoring.

29/9 Online talk to students, postgraduate researchers.

30/9 Meet the new Dean.

1/10 Essay for Tencent, Book proposal review done.

4/10 Train to Tampere, Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies. Invited virtual keynote, ISMAR 2021: mrICHE 2021 workshop.

6/10 Invited talk, virtual, Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Graz.

8/10 train to Helsinki.

Keynote and CFP: Living Digital Heritage

Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage

Call for papers!

Living Digital Heritage Conference: “Integrating the Past into the Present and Future”

Friday 5 – Sunday 7 November 2021, Sydney/Virtual

Hosted by the Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage and Environment (CACHE), Macquarie University

If interested please send your abstracts (panel or paper) to https://event.mq.edu.au/living-digital-heritage by 1 October.

I am happy and honoured to say that I have been invited to keynote, thank you to the organizers and for their tenacity in running this conference.

update: ‘Rethinking Virtual Places’ Proof Approved

Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, publication, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , ,

I mentioned in the below post that I was on the home stretch with this book (in the Indiana University Press Spatial Humanities series), final proof was approved by me this week. I also noticed it was over 107,000 words. Thanks to Dean and Professor Marc Aurel Schnabel for the comments on the back.

“An essential contribution to a very current topic.” —Marc Aurel Schnabel, Victoria University of Wellington

If anyone wishes to review or consider ‘Rethinking Virtual Places‘ for courses please contact Indiana University Press or email me.

Final touches to next book

Australian Cultural Data Engine-2 year LIEF

Academic, Architecture, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, Grant, infrastructure, Linked Open Data, virtual heritage, , ,

Just been given the green light to be officially on the following #ARC #LIEF grant: “Australian Cultural Data Engine for Research, Industry and Government” (announced in December but took this long):

“…Australian Cultural Data Engine for Research, Industry and Government. The project aims to develop an Australian Cultural Data Engine (ACD-Engine), which will be an open software engineering facility that interacts with leading existing cultural databases in architecture, visual and performing arts, humanities, and heritage to build a bridge to information and social sciences. The ACD-Engine will unify and expand these disparate and previously unconnected systems to allow advanced analysis techniques to be performed. It will deliver innovative and searchable formats that ensure interoperability, improved search, interactive design and interpretation aids that will benefit the policy and planning for national and international alignments between researchers, industry and government.”

This will be my fourth Australian Research Council grant (Chief Investigator)* since 2018. The University of Melbourne leads this grant, it runs for two years.

*Also an expert advisor on 5-year ARC Indigenous Discovery grant.

Virtual Heritage: A Guide

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, archaeology, augmented reality, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Open Access, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , , , ,

“Virtual Heritage: A Guide” is published and open access!

Why did we write it? For all those interested in an introduction to virtual heritage, but facing steep purchase costs for academic books, so it is especially suitable for university undergraduate courses. Download what you need, for free.

And given it was written from go to whoa in less than a year and to a tight word limit, I am very grateful to the authors for their time…

Cite: Champion, E. M. (ed.) 2021. Virtual Heritage: A Guide. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://lnkd.in/gNkNWiB. License: CC-BY-NC.

Playing With The Past 2nd ed.

Academic, archaeology, Architecture, Book, Digital Humanities, PhD,

Are second editions of specialist academic books worth the rewrite? Springer asked me to consider a second edition of Playing With the Past (https://lnkd.in/gXYH5Uy), as 10,000 chapters have been downloaded..but it requires some work to update it.

Apparently, 20% can be rewritten but as most of the main chapters were written in 2003-4, updated before publication in 2011, to update to 2021 will be quite some work. There weren’t so many books and papers in the area when I started! On the other hand it is an opportunity to review what I was trying to determine in 2001-2004 during my PhD candidature. And I would love to replace the original cover. Decisions, decisions!