I’ve been lucky enough to be allowed to present remotely to the Interactive Pasts conference in Leiden (October 9-10) as I am not sure if I can get to Europe that month. This is my third presentation to the conference and the only time I have managed to attend was the first one but I am sure the others are just as much fun.

I Have an Axe to Grind: Immersive Historical Literacy and Interactive Pasts Through Co-play

ABSTRACT

Immersive environments (XR, game worlds) require new ways of orienting and navigating a digital “world. ” They also must discard or simplify many real-world affordances. We require a term for designing with an understanding of others’ (players’/visitors’) understanding.

Despite advances in extended reality (XR) and the “Metaverse”, I don’t yet see great attention in critical heritage studies to the important challenges and opportunities of immersive and interactive pasts. To address this apparent gap, I coined the term “immersive literacy” due to specific requirements of immersive media beyond conventional definitions of visual and digital literacy. The concept of immersive literacy extends “literacy” in the digital age, going beyond mere technical proficiency, and encompassing the ability to navigate, interpret, and critically engage with digital content (Bekele et al., 2021).

A further challenge: how to understand and design for historical immersion in a digital world? “Immersively historical literacy” is my suggested term: the ability to critically evaluate and understand the historically contextual simulated and interactive immersive experiences provided by digital cultural heritage applications. If these or similar terms are useful conceptually, can they be elaborated on to help us understand how to design digital worlds to deepen and extend immersively historical literacy? And can the presence and participation of other players help rather than hinder this?

References

Bekele, M. K., Champion, E., McMeekin, D. A., & Rahaman, H. (2021). The Influence of Collaborative and Multi-Modal Mixed Reality: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 5(12), 79. https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/5/12/79https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv21r3q81.