I’m writing a short book, “3D Visualization as Critical Heritage”. I’ll post questions on earzow.com as I work through chapters: 3D As Argument; Culturally Significant Presence; Immersive Literacy; The Vanishing Virtual; The Heritage Multiverse. Chapter titles are draft but hopefully I will stick to them. The book will be in the Critical Heritage series at https://www.cambridge.org/core/publications/elements/critical-heritage-studie
Sorry I don’t have funds for open access publication.
In February I will have 2 PhD projects open for candidates to apply at this new (merged) Adelaide University- Filter “History, Heritage and Archaeology”
https://adelaideuni.edu.au/research/research-degrees/research-projects/
Radical Co-Design for Filtered Affective Digital Heritage via AR and WebXR
This project explores how technology like Augmented Reality (AR) and WebXR can enhance visitor engagement with Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM), particularly dark tourism sites such as prisons, through game design and storytelling. The project focuses on Adelaide Gaol, one of Australia’s oldest colonial buildings. By involving volunteer communities and former prisoners’ families in the radical co-design process, the research aims to develop AR-based experiences that convey personal narratives that can be filtered and tailored to visitors. Key research questions explore utilising radical co-design for dark tourism sites, whether escape-room style game design enhances engagement and how effectively content can be personalised. The project will use low-cost, open-access tools throughout, and will generate new insights applicable across the GLAM and tourism sectors.
Game Prototyping for Museums and Galleries
This project will examine the development and design of game prototypes for use in museums and galleries with content specialists to create interactive, augmented, or immersive exhibitions and/or the evaluation of these exhibitions and works. A number of methods may be considered and investigated, including Figma, ShapesXR, Blueprints, physical game demos, and other methods. Possible outcomes of the project include non-traditional research outputs as well as contributions to theoretical disciplinary knowledge.
Digital Heritage Congress is the big meta-conference of the digital heritage/virtual heritage field. I have been to the first one in Marseille (2013) and reviewed for others.
https://digitalheritage2025.unisi.it/call-for-paper
I thought it was going to be in Thailand in December 2025, so best not to ask me any details but go to the website!
If you are near Athens 18-19 November there is an interesting conference on the topic of the above at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
The program is now available: https://2024.museumbigdata.org/program/
I am giving the below talk and I am happy to mention any information on projects or technology around the following topics and themes.
In this talk, I will explore the increasing promise of extended reality (XR), new sensory data and immersive experiences, and recent emerging visualisation strategies for conveying increasingly immersive and data-driven possibilities for the museum sector. Some recent projects I will cover include the Australian Cultural Data Engine, the Time Layered Cultural Map of Australia, and smaller case studies and experiments in data-driven story-mapping, mixed, augmented, and virtual reality. A key issue is immersive literacy: how designers can cater to the visualisation and navigation issues of the general public not yet experienced in these emerging rich, multimodal, but potentially overpowering or confusing immersive experiences. I will sketch out concepts that may be borrowed from game design to engage, entice, and also encourage audiences to explore this new and more immersive world of big data.
I was invited to present online my thoughts on paradata and metadata in digital heritage today, a free webinar run by the UNESCO chair of digital cultural heritage staring 2PM Central European Time. More details are here. Talks are 10-15 minutes each…
1st Webinar on Defining Paradata, Metadata & Data for Documenting 2D/3D Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) [yes if you miss this there will be another one]…
14:00-14:10 Harry Verwayen DG. Europeana Foundation. NL
Opening remarks
14:10-14:20 Marinos Ioannides, et al UNESCO Chair on DCH at Cyprus University of Technology. CY
Paradata, Metadata & Data for a digital #MemoryTwin
14:20-14:35 Isto Huvila Invited KEYNOTE Uppsala University. SE
Datafication of archaeological archiving and the preservation of what?
14:35-14:50 Luisa Ammirati, et al UNOSAT/UNITAR. CH, UNESCO WHC, FR
Paradata and metadata in an immersive digital heritage experience
14:50-15:05 Erik Champion University of South Australia. AU
Usable, Useful, Reviewable and Reusable Metadata
15:05-15:20 Carla Schroer, et al Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI). US
Building Reliable and Reusable Complex Digital Representations: The Digital Lab Notebook
15:20-15:35 Daniel Pletinckx Visual Dimension bvba. BE
3D Heritage is Heritage, we should treat it as such
15.35-15:50 Tony Cassar, et al Heritage Malta. MT
Challenges of 3D Digitisation of Cultural Heritage
15:50-16:05 Shuyi Yin, et al Columbia University. US
Blockchain Technology for Enhanced Documentation and Management of Built Heritage in Historic Cities
16:20-16:35 Jean-Baptiste Barreau Archéologie des Amériques (ArchAm), CNRS. FR
Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of an Egyptian Saqiya: A Computational Approach to Preserving Cultural Heritage and Water Management Systems
16:35-16:50 Antoine Isaac, et al Europeana Foundation. NL
Making the Europeana Data Model a better fit for documentation of 3D objects
16:50-17:05 Raffaella Brumana, et al Politecnico di Milano. IT
HBIM quality information model to manage surveying, stratigraphic units and transformations into paradata. The mausoleum of Cecilia Metella and the Castrum Caetani
17:05-17:30 Discussion Session & Closing Remarks
New book chapter out! Sorry, not open access.
Champion, E., & Emery, S. (2024). Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums [GLAM]-focussed Games and Gamification. In J. Nichols & B. Mehra (Eds.), Data Curation and Information Systems Design from Australasia: Implications for Cataloguing of Vernacular Knowledge in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (Vol. 54, pp. 67-83). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0065-283020240000054006.
Engaging with digital heritage requires understanding not only to comprehend what is simulated but also the reasons leading to its creation and curation, and how to ensure both the digital media and the significance of the cultural heritage it portrays are passed on effectively, meaningfully, and appropriately. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization defines ‘digital heritage’ to comprise of computer-based materials of enduring value some of which require active preservation strategies to maintain them for years to come.
With the proliferation of digital technologies and digital media, computer games have increasingly been seen as not only depicters of cultural heritage and platforms for virtual heritage scholarship and dissemination but also as digital cultural artefacts worthy of preservation. In this chapter, we examine how games (both digital and non-digital) can communicate cultural heritage in a galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] setting. We also consider how they can and have been used to explore, communicate, and preserve heritage and, in particular, Indigenous heritage. Despite their apparently transient and ephemeral nature, especially compared to conventional media such as books, we argue computer games can be incorporated into active preservation approaches to digital heritage. Indeed, they may be of value to cultural heritage that needs to be not only viewed but also viscerally experienced or otherwise performed.
Assassin’s Creed‹ in the Classroom History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark? HAS been published by De Gruyter, on 18 December. Thanks to my co-editor Dr Juan Hiriart, and our authors.
https://degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783111250724/html
Erik Champion and Juan Hiriart
Introduction: History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark?
Marc-André Éthier and David Lefrançois
Chapter 1: Historical Video Games and Teaching Practices
Chu Xu, Robin Sharma and Adam K. Dubé
Chapter 2: Discovery Tour Curriculum Guides to Improve Teachers’ Adoption of Serious Gaming
Ylva Grufstedt and Robert Houghton
Chapter 3: Christian Vikings Storming Templar Castles: Anachronism as a Teaching Tool
Julien A. Bazile
Chapter 4: Ludoforming the Past: Mediation of Play and Mediation of History through Videogame Design
Nathan Looije
Chapter 5: Exploring History through Depictions of Historical Characters in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Juan Hiriart
Chapter 6: Empathy and Historical Learning in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Discovery Tour
Kevin Péloquin and Marc-André Éthier
Chapter 7: The Discovery Tour as a Mediated Tool for Teaching and Learning History
Angela Schwarz
Chapter 8: Discovering the Past as a Virtual Foreign Country: Assassin’s Creed as Historical Tourism
Hamish Cameron
Chapter 9: Classical Creations in a Modern Medium: Using Story Creator Mode in a University Assignment
Kira Jones
Chapter 10: Assassin’s Creed @ The Carlos: Merging Games and Gallery in the Museum
Manuel Sánchez García and Rafael de Lacour
Chapter 11: From the Sketchbook to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: An Experiment in Architectural Education
Ear Zow Digital
Chapter 12: Assassin’s Creed As Immersive and Interactive Architectural History
Thanks to echoing.eu and NTNU for inviting me to Europe.
MONDAY 16 October NTNU talk, Gunnerus Library, TRONDHEIM NORWAY 12:00-13:00
LUNCH WITH A WRITER: “PLAYING WITH THE PAST”
The eCHOing project is inviting you to a lunch lecture, join us for an exciting event that explores the fascinating world of visitor experiences in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums). Photo: gunnerus.no NTNU UB
TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER Hands-on Game Design Workshop, TRONDHEIM NORWAY, 09:30-14:30
Join us for an exciting event that explores the fascinating world of visitor experiences in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums).
Whether you’re a student curator, librarian, archivist, or museum enthusiast, this event is a must-attend to stay ahead in the ever-evolving GLAM landscape.
In this half-day workshop Erik Champion will help small groups of 4 brainstorm (“ideate”) ideas to create engaging games using a simplified working definition of computer games, and with the help of physical items. Although these game ideas could eventually become digital games, escape rooms, augmented or mixed reality projects, this introductory workshop will concentrate on creating and testing physical (analogue) demos and simple prototypes. Although Erik’s focus has been on history and heritage games, this workshop will be open to other types of games, but particularly on those where players can learn beyond the game, and where the game is a series of engaging challenges. You may bring your own idea for a game, or develop a game idea on the day in a group. No programming necessary.
Short bio for NTNU workshop
Erik Champion tutors game jam projects in South Australia at UniSA, and has hosted game design workshops in Australia, Italy, Poland, the United States, Qatar, and Finland, and co-hosted remotely a game design workshop with school children in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with Dr Juan Hiriart. He is currently working on research projects with Tencent Games and Ubisoft. He wrote Playing With The Past: Into The Future (Springer 2022), and edited the open access book Virtual Heritage: A Guide (Routledge, 2021) and has written books on the intersection between video games and cultural heritage. He has honorary appointments at Curtin, UWA, and ANU and was recently a visiting professor at the University of Jyvāskylā, Finland, a partner of the Centre of Excellence in Game Studies (https://coe-gamecult.org/).
Skills required: none.
The eCHOing project is an EU-funded programme that aims to foster collaboration through open innovation between universities and 29 cultural institutions in five European countries. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to gain valuable insights from our invited gaming guru and writer of the book PLAYING WITH THE PAST.
WEDNESDAY 18 October MediaCity, Salford University, MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, UK, 15:00-19.00
Flexible Heritage Games, Extended Reality and Heritage Futures
My talk: Flexible Heritage Games, Extended Reality and Heritage Futures, focuses on XR and escape rooms, what can we learn from them?
Featuring four presentations as part of the Southern Je immersive exhibition.
FRIDAY 20 October, VR Lab, University of Iceland, REYKJAVIK, ICELAND, 14:00-16:00
Linking Digital Heritage, Games and Virtual Tourism: Menningararfur í sýndarheimum – Cultural Heritage in Virtual Worlds Symposium.
This talk will examine how key challenges in digital heritage involving 3D models could be brought to life and re-opened to interpretation by game design, and how game-like interaction could also help increase the richness and immersive qualities of XR (extended reality) and virtual tourism. Can 3D models, the scholarly information surrounding them, and the involvement of the public be brought closer together? And can we harness the speed and complexity of new technologies to ensure both the data and our understanding of that data can be recorded, interpreted, and shared more fairly, openly, and democratically?
Tickets: EVENTBRITE.
The other speakers will be talking on:
a) making digital twins of statues and monuments that can be used for different purposes in preservation and promotion (https://sketchfab.com/ListasafnEinars/models);
b) working with heritage and even heritage artefacts into a computer game https://islandofwinds.com
NB Morning Workshop on game prototyping: to be determined.
MONDAY 23 October Watershed Media Centre BRISTOL, ENGLAND, UK, 18:00-20:00
Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes Book Launch
WEDNESDAY 25 October School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Central Square, CARDIFF UNIVERSITY, WALES, UK, 16:00-17:15
Reflective Experiences with Immersive Heritage (Difficult Digital Heritage)
Despite the growth and spread of digital humanities visualisation projects, parallel and accessible examples in immersive virtual heritage are harder to find. Over the last three decades, immersive technologies (especially as “new” media) have embraced digital heritage to create spectacular experiences, but existing and durable examples of virtual heritage (virtual reality applied to cultural heritage) are relatively rare, while examples of difficult heritage far rarer. In this talk I will summarize relevant dilemmas in presence research, and recent developments in virtual heritage, reflect on some difficult lessons learnt, and offer some recommendations as to how we could address the depiction or evocation of difficult pasts in the near future.
BIO
Erik Champion is an Enterprise Fellow at UniSA, Emeritus Professor at Curtin University, Honorary Research Fellow at UWA, and Honorary Research Professor at ANU. He has published books and papers on serious games and game mods, virtual heritage, virtual world phenomenology, digital humanities infrastructures, and architectural history.
#CFP did I mention Dr Juan Hiriart and I are organizing an archaeogames session? @CAA2024AKL in Auckland New Zealand, 8-12 April? No?
Paper deadline: 19 October.
Venue: Built on the embers of my old condemned student flat.
URL: https://2024.caaconference.org/sessions/#S12
Keywords: #caa #archaeology #games #reuse #auckland #newzealand
Partnering with the Adelaide Gaol, we are looking for a PhD student to explore a project that looks at tourism of places with challenging histories in respectful and personalised ways using Augmented Reality.
You need to be eligible to complete a PhD to apply and you can find the eligibility requirements link at the bottom of the UniSA Project Page.
Project stipend is $32,500 a year and the project supervisors are Associate Professor Ear Zow Digital, Dr. Susanah Emery and Dr. Michele Jarldorn.
I’m sorry I have not been updating this blog very frequently.
I spent a week in Sydney (at my expense but for a good cause): ICOMOS. I am a member of ICIP ICOMOS but to be honest I don’t seem to be very involved or I don’t know (currently) what is happening. They had their meeting as I was travelling to ICOMOS General Assembly, we co-chairs of the Scientific Symposium had to meet at 7.30 every day and Tuesday and Thursday was a full on Digital Heritage program that I have mixed feelings about.
The concerns I have about Digital Heritage seem shared by the others, but I only had 15 minutes to talk and they decided (because of others, and the screen having to reset) that there were no Q&A for my session. I think in future I will work with more specialist audiences at smaller events, I don’t think my involvement at these bigger conferences is very effective, it will be more relevant for others.
During our day break (the session was split into Tuesday and Thursday with a visit in between to the Blue Mountains, (I don’t know why, but perhaps it wasn’t such an issue after all) I visited the Australian National Maritime Museum and had a brief conversation with the submarine HMAS Vampire volunteer, an ex-submariner about when things go wrong (footnote: he was lucky the sub only had practice torpedos, they return to the nearest acoustic object if they can’t find their target, a lesson he learnt all too well). It was fascinating listening to him.
Anyway, my talk was on difficult decision-making with digital heritage, a response to https://heritagedecisions.leeds.ac.uk
I will be in Sydney during the ICOMOS General Assembly co-chairing the Digital Heritage program, 5 and 7 September.
I think that should be enough for awhile…
GLAM Games: Gaps and Glimmers in the Visitor Experience
Bradley Forum Level 5 Hawke Building 50-55 North Terrace, Adelaide
25 September from 9.30. Book a free ticket at Eventbrite.
GLAM Games: Gaps and Glimmers in the Visitor Experience
Join us for an exciting event that explores the fascinating world of visitor experiences in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums).
Discover the gaps and glimmers in the visitor journey as we delve into the latest trends and strategies to enhance engagement and create memorable experiences.
Date: Mon Sep 25 2023 Time: 09:30 AM ACST Location: Bradley Forum, Level 5, Hawke Building, UniSA City West Campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide, SA
Immerse yourself in a day filled with insightful discussions, interactive workshops, and networking opportunities with industry experts and like-minded professionals.
Whether you’re a curator, librarian, archivist, or museum enthusiast, this event is a must-attend to stay ahead in the ever-evolving GLAM landscape.
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to gain valuable insights and exchange ideas with fellow GLAM enthusiasts. Register now to secure your spot!
SCHEDULE:
9.30 Intro & talk Associate Professor Erik Champion (UniSA) Learning Through Play
10.00 Peter Tattersall (Head of Visitor Engagement, National Maritime Museum (Sydney)) What are you playing at? Contested histories, video games, classrooms, and museums
10.30 MORNING TEA (provided)
11.00 Dr Melissa Rogerson (University of Melbourne) Avoiding “analogue” – combining physical components with technologies to make new playful experiences
11.30 Dr Bernardo Pereira (ANU) Insights from a Computer Science Escape Room Experience
12.00 Drs Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller & Katrina Grant (ANU) Lo-fi Games in GLAM
12.30 Dr Susannah Emery, George Martin & Sophia Booij (UniSA) “Escaping the classroom” – engaging students with history
1.00 LUNCH
2.00 Natalie Carfora & Claudia von der Borch (MOD. Museum) Designing Museum Experiences: Learnings from George Alexander Foundation Fellowships
2.30 Peter Tullin (Remix) The changing landscape for the cultural and creative industries
3.00 Sam Haren (Sandpit) Bringing Intimacy Back to Digital Interactions
3.30 AFTERNOON TEA (provided)
4.00 Dr Juan Hiriart (the University of Salford UK (virtual)) Co-designing indigenous games: South America and beyond
Above image: Gallery & Museum AR-game workshop, Finland 2021 (copyright Erik Champion).
This event was supported by a Creative UniSA grant and with the help of the Department for Industry, Innovation and Science (South Australia).
Our article “Exploring Historical Australian Expeditions with Time-Layered Cultural Maps” has been published in IJGI and is available online:
Website: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/12/3/104
PDF Version: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/12/3/104/pdf
Exploring Historical Australian Expeditions with Time-Layered Cultural Maps
The Australian Time Layered Cultural Map platform was created to help digital humanities scholars investigate how online geospatial tools could provide exemplars to their humanities colleagues on how historical collections and cultural data could be extended and re-examined with geospatial tools. The project discussed here investigated how Recogito/TMT could effectively extract spatial and temporal data from pure text-based historical information and generate time-layered interactive maps of that spatio-temporal data using accessible and user-friendly software. The target audience was humanities scholars relatively new to geospatial technologies and relevant programming systems. The interactive maps were created with two free, open-source web applications and one commercial GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping application. The relative pros and cons of each application are discussed. This paper also investigates simple workflows for extracting spatiotemporal data into RDF (Resource Description Framework) format to be used as Linked Open Data.
PhD study opportunity* at the University of South Australia (in Adelaide, South Australia) https://unisa.edu.au/research/degrees/leveraging-audio-augmented-reality
“lead tourists around past & present live music hotspots & live music history locations of Adelaide with directed thematic or user-driven audio tours”
*Sorry, there are no degree fees for locals but there is also no scholarship funding attached to this one.
“Over the years, the CIPA Symposium has been an important international crossroad for a wide community of researchers, professionals, and site managers interested in documenting, understanding, and preserving cultural heritage. CIPA was jointly founded in 1968 by ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites) and ISPRS (International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) to facilitate the transfer of technology from the measurement sciences into the heritage documentation and recording disciplines. Since then, the biennial symposia have enabled an ever-growing community to meet, debate, network, and get up-to-date. After the very sad and long period that forced us to stay separated, we will meet again in person during CIPA2023 in Florence, from 25-30 June 2023.”
https://www.cipa2023florence.org/programme/call-for-papers
Authors of selected papers will have the opportunity to present their work during the Symposium as long or short presentations.
Proceedings will collect all the papers that have passed a peer-review process in the ISPRS Archives and Annals.
Selected contributors will be invited to submit an extended version of their papers to Special Issues of Journals linked to the Conference (e.g. Applied Geomatics, Ananke, Sensors, Virtual Archaeology Review – list to be updated).
Special sessions will be reserved to GEORES and ARQUEOLÓGICA 2.0. Have a look to the past edition (2021)!
Paper submission deadlines
The deadlines* for this Call for Papers are as follows:
[EXTENDED] 8th January 2023: Deadline for uploading extended abstract (for papers proposed for ISPRS Archives)
31st January 2023: Review notification for extended abstract (for papers proposed for ISPRS Archives)
10th February 2023: Deadline for uploading full paper (proposed for ISPRS Annals)
10th April 2023: Review notification for full papers (proposed for ISPRS Annals)
10th April 2023: Deadline for uploading full papers (to be published in ISPRS Archives)
10th May 2023: Deadline for uploading camera ready full papers (to be published in ISPRS Annals)
ICOMOS GA 2023 Scientific Symposium abstracts are due 23 September [update: now 30 September].
I’m looking for reviewers in the digital heritage theme to help with abstracts-English and / or French and / or Spanish readers.
Those interested in reviewing Digital Heritage abstracts can email me for more information.
Next project: edited collected chapters (free online): DIY archaeology (history, architectural/art history and heritage) escape rooms children/students can create at home or in class (written and illustrated like cookbook recipes). Now, just how to write up the proposal & find the right designers, writers, & experts!
| Playing with the Past: Into the Future (Human–Computer Interaction Series), 2nd ed. |
| from Springer-Nature: “Dear Prof. Erik Champion, Your book “Playing with the Past: Into the Future (Human–Computer Interaction Series), 2nd ed.” is currently planned to be published by 30.10.2022.” |
Ear Zow Digital