Category Archives: Digital Humanities

ICOMOS General Assembly

Academic, Digital Humanities, heritage, virtual heritage

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

October Travels in Europe

Academic, Announcements, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

I think that should be enough for awhile…

Australian Cultural Data Futures

Announcements, Architecture, Digital Humanities, Linked Open Data, Presentation

Australian Cultural Data Futures — Australian Cultural Data Engine

Free event at the University of Melbourne next Thursday, yes I will be there! Australian Cultural Data Futures, Thursday, 24 August 2023, 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, University of Melbourne.

I will talk about 360 panoramas and 3D, the article from this research is available online via the Heritage Journal or via an online encyclopedia

Cultural data collections in Australia are at a critical juncture. While exciting new methods and approaches in cultural analytics have revealed the multifaceted uses and cross-disciplinary value of…

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Free event: GLAM Games

Academic, Announcements, Digital Humanities, heritage, Presentation, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

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).

Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space

3D and game editors, Announcements, Architecture, augmented reality, board game, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, visualisation

Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space

 will be released tomorrow by MIT Press.

Dr Juan Hiriart and I have a chapter in it:

Workshopping Board Games for Space Place and Culture.

Full reference:

E. Champion and J. Hiriart. Workshopping Board Games for Space Place and Culture. In: Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space, edited by C. Randl and D. M. Lasansky. MIT Press 2023. ISBN: 9780262047838.

Book Details

Augmenting Creative Partnerships: GLAM Games

Academic, Announcements, Digital Humanities, Grant

Just recently confirmed three internal (UniSA) seed grants:

  • a small “Strengthening International Research Reputation Grant Scheme” grant to visit the UK after Norway (& Iceland are calling) was confirmed last week and also involves visiting Norfolk Island for a potential further grant;
  • a second small grant (from the Australian Research Centre on Interactive and Virtual Environments) to develop a virtual heritage case study;
  • and now a third one(“Augmenting Creative Partnerships”) to host guests and other speakers on GLAM games at Bradley Forum, University of South Australia City West Campus Monday 25 September in Adelaide South Australia.

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.

Chapter out

Announcements, book chapter, Digital Humanities, , , ,

Reimagining the Humanities edited by Mauer and Salter is out! I wrote a chapter in there somewhere. https://lnkd.in/dgfpc_CK ISBN 978-1-64317-346-7

Champion, E. (2023). Not Quite Virtual: Techné between Text and World. In B. Mauer & A. Salter (Eds.), Reimagining the Humanities (pp. 282). Parlor Press. https://parlorpress.com/products/reimagining-the-humanities


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)

Milan in June 2023

Academic, Architecture, augmented reality, Conference, Digital Humanities, talks, Virtual Reality, visualisation, workshop

I have received an invitation from the ERC Advanced Project “An-iconology. Theory, History, and Practices of Environmental Images” (AN-ICON) hosted by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” (https://an-icon.unimi.it/) to speak at the “AN-ICON” International Workshop in MILAN June 2023. An honour to be invited.

We are now organising the workshop “Real Space-Virtual Space. Aesthetics, Architecture and Immersive Environments,” scheduled on 19th-21st June 2023, dedicated to the dialogue between virtual spaces, architecture and urban planning. We will investigate this intertwining which is more and more relevant at both practical and academic level by adopting a transdisciplinary and multimethodological approach – including aesthetics, phenomenology, media studies, architectural design, urban planning, cultural heritage studies. 

The workshop will be held at the University of Milan and Milano Triennale (https://triennale.org/), the renowned Italian institution dedicated to design and architecture. 

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

book chapter out: Reflective Experiences with Immersive Heritage

Academic, Announcements, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality

Google told me I can buy my chapter today in this book out soon “Difficult Heritage and Immersive Experiences” my chapter is “Chapter 2. Reflective Experiences with Immersive Heritage” #chapter #difficultheritage #darkheritage

In this chapter I will examine difficult and dark heritage. Others have articulated the overlap and potential different connotations and spheres of influence of dark heritage and difficult heritage (Thomas et al. 2019). For the sake of expediency, I will not attempt to distinguish between difficult heritage and dark heritage (a term imported from dark tourism) as I am particularly interested in the difficult interaction aspects of communicating dark heritage due to the technical challenges of virtual heritage, gaps or immaturity in virtual heritage as a distinct scholarly field, and the still to be fully explored role and impact of virtual heritage as an immersive and interactive medium capable of coaxing, encouraging and affording reflectivity.

PhD Project Call, no fees

Announcements, augmented reality, Digital Humanities, game, job, PhD, serious games, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , ,

PHD project in Adelaide, no scholarship but no fees, with cool museum partner (https://mod.org.au):

The successful candidate will investigate and design learning kits for museums, communities and small classes to create escape rooms either physical or hybrid, or via a game engine. The kit will provide resources and interaction strategies to help budding escape room designers plan escape rooms for their compatriots, and in doing so learn for themselves how to create tricky interactive puzzles, quizzes and physical riddles based on principles in science, mathematics or history. The instructions will be either via virtual examples through a game engine or game engine exporting to VR, or via online instruction videos using the latest instructional video expertise.

Successful completion of the project will provide you with experience in boardgame, physical escape room, digital game or VR escape room design including scripting, prototyping, digital modelling, and potentially animation experience. As well as a background in human-computer interaction and education. Thus, you will be provided with the skills for a successful and exciting research or industry career in a diverse range of areas. 

What you’ll do

In this project-based research degree, you will review, design and evaluate design resources (physical and digital) for the creation of escape rooms by design students.

You will engage and partner with MOD. staff and deploy IVE, VR and AR equipment, as well as run and evaluate escape room design workshops.

Where you’ll be based

You will be based at UniSA Creative, incorporating the South Australian School of Art, which brings together the disciplines of architecture, planning, art and design, journalism, communication and media, film and television and the creative industries to produce flexible graduates with multidisciplinary capabilities. Our research explores the complexities of the world around us. We engage in future-focused, cross-disciplinary research and consultancy to produce inspired solutions that are human-centred and sustainable.  

https://www.unisa.edu.au/research/degrees/designing-an-escape-room-toolkit

Book ideas for other people to write

Architecture, digital heritage, Digital Humanities
  • A monograph or edited book on fake or misleading heritage and history and the repercussions (and the complications of digital versions)
  • Clear and easy to follow exemplars of digital humanities collections using Linked Open Data with references to the power of GIS
  • Small and big things learnt by designers of virtual worlds and how the Metaverse could learn to avoid making the same mistakes
  • A meta review on architectural criticism and whether it has really progressed that much
  • Why game designers hate gamification (but with a few counter-examples they might actually like)

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

Escape Room Archaeology

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Open Access, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, ,

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! 

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.

Talk in Iceland, June 16.

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Digital Humanities, Presentation, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation,

I wish! (Well, hopefully next year)… but anyway, I will give a 20-25 minute talk by Zoom, on Thursday June 16. The PHIVE conference (PROMOTING HERITAGE IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS) is kicked off by the President of Iceland, a noted Professor of History, and a few months older than me (so I still have time to become a head of state).

Title

Into the Heritage-Verse

Abstract

Proponents of virtual reality, extended reality, and the “Metaverse’ suggest the digital future of multiple entertainment and education worlds is imminent. And the field of virtual heritage (virtual reality and related technologies) is arguably over three decades old already.

If this is true, and given that we are saturated by phone-media, apps, and games, why is it so hard to find example of virtual heritage? What is stopping the uptake of these new technologies? And how can we use these new, imminent, and hyped devices and platforms for the benefit of digital heritage, or are there conceptual challenges still to be resolved?

Swords Sandals and Selfies

3D and game editors, Academic, book chapter, Digital Humanities, game, serious games, virtual heritage, visualisation, , ,
An abstract from a draft chapter. I have written the chapter but hope to revise it further. It is for a book entitled Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes, out, I hope, early 2023.

The prospect and potential of videogame-induced tourism has only recently been discussed in academic publications. I will examine three possible reasons why, I will provide evidence to the contrary, and suggest new developments that may accelerate the impact of videogames on tourism (and the related experiencing of affective landscapes). My main case study will be Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. This 2019 game draws the player into the exploration of idyllic and war-torn historic and mythic landscapes of Athens and Sparta, via questing and simulated violence. It also features a non-violent “Discovery” mode, photographical functions, and a Story Creator mode allowing quests (and in-game photos) to be designed and shared with other players. Beyond violent gameplay, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey allows the exploration of idyllic historic landscapes and heritage sites. Given the company employs both high-quality designers and professional historians (and archaeologists), we can employ such sandbox games as both a pre-visitation visualisation tool and as a hybrid fictional and yet also factual learning environment.