Erik Champion DIGHUMLAB.DK ABSTRACT Academic discourse (of the historical sciences) presupposes a vast domain of related background knowledge learnt yet creative technique of extrapolation But NOT the experiential detective work of experts that visit the real site. Fact or fiction, History or history Scholarly knowledge does not easily translate to audience knowledge; nor is scholarly knowledge necessarily the type of knowledge that would best engage the public. Is it preferable for the audience to learn about a collection of culturally situated past experiences, or a strictly academic procession of historical events? TRACES OF THE WORLD VH Data includes the remains, hypotheses, intangible heritage, audience background and motivation Digitally mediated technology can replicate existing data but also modify the learning experience of through augmentation filtering constraining. BUT Virtual environments are not complex in their interactional history if VR is “being there”; the past and the present do not intermingle as they do in real places the many sub/conscious ways that people leave traces in the world are not conveyed in static 3D models. Discover Ancient Rome in Google Earth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqMXIR wQniA Image: http://www.virtualtripping.com/google- earths-rome-reborn/ 2008 London Charter remedies this? Virtual heritage is …the use of computer-based interactive technologies to record, preserve, or recreate artefacts, sites and actors of historic, artistic, religious, of cultural significance and to deliver the results openly to a global audience in such a way as to provide formative educational experiences through electronic manipulations of time and space. Stone, Robert, and Takeo Ojika. 2000. Virtual heritage: what next? Multimedia, IEEE no. 7 (2):73-74. We need new ways to engage students and public… But museums can succeed without the digital… National museum of Ethnographic Collection Science Bergamo by user, bergamo Relates to future funding… CARARE Final Conference 7-9.11.12 Europeana,.. Frees 20 m objects, 22 3D http://www.sparpointgroup.com/Blogs/Co ntinental-View/Interview--Dr-Anestis- http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab Koutsoudis---At-the-cutting-edge-of- log/2012/sep/12/europeana-cultural- Greek-3D/ or http://www.67100.gr/ heritage-library-europe Answers answers answers Record and integrate “discovery” process Use game engines and game metaphors more effectively Develop a better framework of applied game theory that is scalable, easily tested and falsifiable Game-based-learning promises 1. Technology, graphics and storage and speed, (Augmented reality, nonphysical interaction) 2. Archaeological information 3. Training and ideas 4. Crowd sourcing, LBG, and social media 5. Interdisciplinary approaches Game components allow modification of the visual overlaid interface, the Heads Up Display (HUD) include avatars with triggered and re- scriptable behaviors and path-finding maps that demonstrate location, orientation, or the social attitude of non- playing characters in relation to the player imaginative use of technical constraints that add to the thematic fantasy, goal- direction and challenge necessary for an entertaining game. SO: How can games and interactive digital media in general help learning about archaeology? Types of games that MAY help.. Type of game (paper, Champion, GBL, 2008) Example in available games Tourist Game: enjoy off site from a safe and The new travel game genre, like comfortable distance. Weekend in Capri Puzzle Games: find what happened by ArcDig; Qin: Tomb of the Magic Kingdom, escape examining material remains, changes, epigraphy.. the Forbidden city by solving puzzles (traps etc.). Resource Management: understand the Civilization, Age of Empires, Tribal Trouble, speculative historical processes and formulae, Pharaoh, Caesar IV inhabitants’ relationships to their surrounds.. Historical Battles: Avoid being killed, take over The Total War Series, Battalion IV, Starcraft territory, learn military strategies. Role Playing Games The Elder Scroll series: Oblivion, Skyrim Control Games: These games aim to control Shadow of the Colossus, Darwin, Black and White or overcome inhabitants. Social Mashup: encounters via semi-controlled The Sims, Spore characters. Games that allow classroom role-playing of Halo, Unreal, Sims, The Movies history through in-game camera capture(machinima). Where the knowledge is learnt Deduction Exploration Augmented -ambient info Counterfactual inspiration Instrumental Performance (role-playing) Diegetic (narration) inside/outside VE versus mimesis OR external diegesis Cultural Significance Today, electronic games are an important vehicle for learning (Anderson, 2010; Dondlinger, 2007). At the minimum, a game is an activity that (1) typically has some goal in mind, something that the player works to achieve, (2) has systematic or emergent rules, and (3) is considered a form of play or competition (Oxford, 2010). Apart from “skill and drill” types of games, many are much more complex, providing an interactive narrative in which the player must test hypotheses, synthesize knowledge, and respond to the unexpected (Dondlinger, 2007). For historical situations or heritage the player/user/student should develop a deeper understanding rather than simply memorizing facts (Bloom, 1956). I wish to convey the cultural significance of what is represented and interacted with. What did X mean in time and space and culture and to whom? My past projects.. Question: How contextually appropriate interaction can aid the understanding of cultures distant and remote to the participant. Participants: university students, museum curators, travel writers, 3D visualization experts, language scholars, travellers and tourists. Tools: Unreal, Unity, Half-Life 2, NeverWinter Nights, Oblivion, Quest 3D, Adobe Atmosphere, Flash, StrataStudio, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Blender. Learning from disperience How unreliable digital media can be! Data collection is usually suspect. Theoretical notions of cultural learning are not designed to be easily tested, what is it and how can it be tested? Designers do not fully understand their own assumptions until they play test other designers. Greatest learning experience has been from designing these VEs, not from playing them. Gaps between the humanities and the technology researchers in VH is still alarming. Little simulation of rituals Do video games employ habitual social and personal activities closely related to ritual (Gazzard and Peacock 2011)? Any repetitious activity is NOT a ritual. Rituals, games, and game play narratives may lead to unpredictable outcomes yet rituals in the real-world tend to be closed rules are often indirect and learnt over many years, the ritual is experienced in a transcendental state outside distractions are minimized and ignored paradoxically, while the ritual is an important part of social bonding it can also reinforce social distinctions. In the real world the complicit attention and deference of participants is crucial and immediately sensed. Can we crowd-source? To what extent can users enrich their environment by personalizing it and communicating through it (Walters, Hughes and Hughes, 2011)? To what extent should users be thematically constrained by the environment itself? How much individual freedom can users have to interact with the environment at the risk of destroying immersion? IS Digital media a shop façade for the serious and scholarly past-time of reading and writing books (Parry 2005; Gillings, 2002). then how will the changing attention spans and learning patterns of new generations be best addressed (Mehegan, 2007)? Dreams Level design game games Augmented reality and mobile devices Physiological interaction New interaction inspirations World- builder Learning via craft not just spectacle Humbleness with distinctions Treating people as infrastructure *VMUST Get students to learn about historic events and literature through simple game design Journey to the West, recreated in NeverWinter Nights, a 12 week project by 3 students in 2006. Involved their translation from the origin al Chinese text. They included the text in the games, created game mechanics and levels from the text, and tested Chinese and Australian students. cultural games can be playfully instructive Shown at Vsmm2012 conference Chinese Taoism Touch Screen by Neil Wang and Erik Champion Opening - http://youtu.be/gFYG4zTn4Js Game Hua - http://youtu.be/DiGDezTM8hY Game Qi1 - http://youtu.be/jP9nfdUFDTU Game Qi2 - http://youtu.be/orCga2CQBjs Game Qin - http://youtu.be/iC2BGT5IbDE Game Shu - http://youtu.be/dv_TOnl_sbc BIOFEEDBACK CINEMATICS AND XRAY VISION ETC PRESS http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/ Tue, 05/20/2008 - 16:21 We publish books, but we’re also interested in the participatory future of content creation across multiple media. We are an academic, open source, multimedia, publishing imprint affiliated with the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and in partnership with Lulu.com. ETC Press has an affiliation with the Institute for the Future of the Book and MediaCommons, sharing in the exploration of the evolution of discourse. ETC Press also has an agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to place ETC Press publications in the ACM Digital Library, and another with Feedbooks to place ETC Press texts in their e-reading platform. Also, ETC Press publications will be in Booktrope and in the ThoughtMesh.