Category Archives: Virtual travel

Videogames, Heritage and Tourism

Academic, augmented reality, Presentation, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel,

I gave an online talk on the above to Hiroshima University today.

I have 4 excellent questions from the students to research and hopefully answer:

  • Which videogames specifically led to real-world tourism? I add here, and what if one’s that are also in film or tv or in book form?
  • Of those games transformed into virtual tourism, which ones incorporated local cultural context?
  • How can we stop virtual tourism from creating false memories?
  • Is there anywhere in the world where virtual heritage is checked for authenticity by organisations (such as UNESCO?)

Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel, , , , , ,

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

Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or A Stab in the Dark?

Academic, Announcements, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel, , , , , , , , ,

The book contract is signed, the chapter authors are completing their chapters, and we have a book cover image from Ubisoft (not this one, this is a screenshot from AC Origins Discovery Tour), I just need to update my own chapter and references.

Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or A Stab in the Dark?

Editors: Erik Champion, Juan Hiriart

Publisher: De Gruyter, Video Games and the Humanities series

Section 1: History Through Play

  • Historical Video Games and Teaching Practices,  Marc-André Éthier, David Lefrancois
  • Discovery Tour Curriculum Guides To Improve Teachers’ Adoption of Serious Gaming, Chu Xu, Robin Sharma, Adam K. Dubé
  • Christian Vikings storming Templar Castles: Anachronism as a Teaching Tool, Ylva Grufstedt, Robert Houghton
  • Ludoforming The Past: Mediation Of Play And Mediation Of History Through Videogame Design, Julien Bazil

Section 2: Cultural History, Tours And Tourism

  • Studying Greek Culture Through Historical Characters In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Nathan Looije
  • Empathy and Historical Learning in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Discovery Tour, Juan Hiriart
  • Ubisoft’s Ancient Greece Discovery Tour as a Pedagogical Tool for a School Trip, Kevin Péloquin, Marc-André Éthier
  • Discovering The Past As A Virtual Foreign Country: Assassin’s Creed As Historical Tourism, Angela Schwarz

Section 3: Narration, Creation, and Exhibition

  • Classical Creations in a Modern Medium: Using Story Creator Mode in a University Assignment, Hamish Cameron
  • Assassin’s Creed @ the Carlos: Merging Videogames and Education in the Gallery, Kira Jones
  • From the Sketchbook to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: An Experiment in Architectural Education, Manuel Sanchez Garcia,  Rafael de Lacour
  • Assassin’s Creed As Immersive and Interactive Architectural History, Erik Champion

New book, new cover?

Announcements, Architecture, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, serious games, Virtual travel, visualisation

Champion, E., & Hiriart, J. (Eds.). (2023: accepted). Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark? De Gruyter: Video games and the Humanities series.

It looks like the “Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark?” edited book is close to the contract stage, and hopefully will be published by the end of the year…what sort of cover image do you suggest? For De Gruyter’s “Video Games and the Humanities” series (must suit their theme colour):

degruyter.com

Video Games and the Humanities

This series provides a multidisciplinary framework for scholarly approaches to video games in the humanities.

new book: Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes

Announcements, Book, publication, Virtual travel

Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes: The Real, the Virtual, and the Cinematic (Routledge, 2022).*

Edited By Ear Zow Digital, Christina Lee, Jane Stadler and Robert Moses Peaslee

This book explores ways in which screen-based storyworlds transfix, transform, and transport us imaginatively, physically, and virtually to the places they depict or film. Topics include fantasy quests in computer games, celebrity walking tours, dark tourism sites, Hobbiton as theme park, surf movies, and social gangs of Disneyland.

How physical, virtual, and imagined locations create a sense of place through their immediate experience or visitation is undergoing a revolution in technology, travel modes, and tourism behaviour. This edited collection explores the rapidly evolving field of screen tourism and the affective impact of landscape, with provocative questions and investigations of social groups, fan culture, new technology, and the wider changing trends in screen tourism. We provide critical examples of affective landscapes across a wide range of mediums (from the big screen to the small screen) and locations.

This book will appeal to students and scholars in film and tourism, as well as geography, design, media and communication studies, game studies, and digital humanities.

*Webpage says 2023 but routledge told me 2022 but routledge said 2022.

Playing with the Past: Into the Future

Announcements, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel, visualisation

I believe my latest book (well second edition) is out today, “Playing with the Past: Into the Future” (in the Human–Computer Interaction Series) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-10932-4 but it just takes to me to my own university library link so I’ll have to take my own word for it!

Since the turn of this century (and even earlier), a plethora of projects have arisen to promise us bold new interactive adventures and immersive travel into the past with digital environments (using mixed, virtual or augmented reality, as well as computer games). In Playing with the Past: Into the Future Erik Champion surveys past attempts to communicate history and heritage through virtual environments and suggests new technology and creative ideas for more engaging and educational games and virtual learning environments.

This second edition builds on and updates the first edition with new game discussions, surveys, design frameworks, and theories on how cultural heritage could be experienced in digital worlds, via museums, mobile phones, or the Metaverse. Recent games and learning environments are reviewed, with provocative discussion of new and emerging promises and challenges.

Playing with the past: INTO The Future (2023)

Out in print oh so soon

Academic, Announcements, augmented reality, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel

Books

Playing with the Past: Into the Future (second edition, ebook out soon)

Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes: The Real, the Virtual, and the Cinematic-I’m a co-editor but have a chapter on videogame tourism in there somewhere..

Book Chapters

Working on now/sent

  • Champion, E., Stadler, J., Lee, C., & Peaslee, R. (Eds.). (2023: In press). Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes: the Real, the Virtual, and the Cinematic. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Screen-Tourism-and-Affective-Landscapes-The-Real-the-Virtual-and-the/Champion-Lee-Stadler-Peaslee/p/book/9781032355962. 
  • Champion, E., & Hiriart, J. (2023: In press). Workshopping Board Games for Space Place and Culture. In C. Randl & D. M. Lasansky (Eds.), Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space. MIT Press. 08/2023.
  • Champion, E. M. (2023: In press). Digital Heritage Ethics. In A. Pantazatos, T. Ireland, J. Schofield, & R. Zhang (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Ethics. Routledge. 
  • Champion, E., & Emery, S. (2023: Pending). Gamification of Cultural Heritage as a resource for the GLAM sector. In J. Nichols & B. Mehra (Eds.), Data Curation and Information Systems Design from Australasia: Implications for Cataloguing of Indigenous Knowledge in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. Routledge. 
  • Champion, E. (2022: In press). Not Quite Virtual: Techné between Text and World. In B. Mauer & A. Salter (Eds.), Reimagining the Humanities. Parlor Press. 

Conference paper

Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes

Academic, Announcements, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, Virtual travel,

If anyone would like a review/inspection copy of the edited book “Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes: The Real, the Virtual, and the Cinematic” (out 30.12.2022, cover to come) there is a link on the webpage.

  1. Introduction
  2. Screen Tourism: Marketing the Moods and Myths of Magic Places
  3. Windshield Tourism Goes Viral: On YouTube Scenic Drive Videos of U.S. National Parks
  4. “Forever Bali”: Surf Tourism and Morning of the Earth (1972)
  5. Locating Fellini: Affect, Cinecittà, and the Cinematic Pilgrimage
  6. Walking in Cary Grant’s footsteps: the Looking for Archie walking tour
  7. Vancouver Unmoored: Hollywood North as a Site of Spectres
  8. Always The Desert – Creating Affective Landscapes Through Visual Storytelling In Breaking Bad
  9. Nordic Noir and miserable landscape tourism
  10. Serial Killer Cinema and Dark Tourism: The Affective Contours of Genre and Place
  11. Down the Rabbit Hole: Disneyland Gangs, Affective Spaces, and Covid-19
  12. Immersive Worlds and Sites of Participatory Culture: The Evolution of Screen Tourism and Theme Parks
  13. Hobbiton 2.0, 20 years on: Authenticity and Immersive Themed Space
  14. Swords, Sandals, and Selfies: Videogame-induced Tourism

invited talk

Academic, augmented reality, Digital Humanities, Symposium, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel

International conference on “World Heritage and Urban-Rural Sustainable Development: Resilience and Innovation” from 15 to 16 November 2022, organised by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (WHITRAP) and the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP, Tongji University, Shanghai China). 

Invited to present virtually on Nov 16, in the session Topic 4: New Visions/New Technologies in Heritage Conservation..

Related activities are:

  • the WHITRAP Shanghai World Heritage Dialogues, organised from 11 June to 16 November 2022;
  • the International Conference World Heritage and Urban-Rural Sustainable Development: Resilience and Innovation, organised from 15 to 16 November 2022;
  • the Public Exhibition World Heritage Cities: Past, Present and Future, organised from 16 to 30 November 2022.

Virtual travel interview

augmented reality, Virtual Reality, Virtual travel,

It looks like I am being (ZOOM) interviewed this week on the future of virtual travel by RMITV show The Cutting Room “Our show explores issues and topics in the world of screen media, and this week’s episode is themed around Virtual Reality.”

If all goes to plan I think the episode will be on C31 (Melbourne community TV) and then straight to RMITV’s YouTube channel next Monday (6 June).