IVE interns

There are intern (unpaid, sorry) projects available at IVE UniSA (and at University of Auckland).

I’m excited to announce the launch of the 2024 virtual intern program for the Empathic Computing Laboratory and IVE AR/VR research centre.

We have 21 great projects in AR/VR/XR, brain computing interfaces, AI, etc that you can do without leaving home.

Apply now and get the chance to work and publish with some of the best researchers in the world. See https://lnkd.in/g-WFSeJ

by Mark Billinghurst

I have 2 projects listed (at the end of the PDF):

VIP Project List- March 2024

Project 20: 3D and panoramic interactive viewer

Review software (preferably open access and low cost) that can offer interactive and interesting ways to combine 3D models and panoramic backgrounds. Ideally the 3D model or aspects of the panorama can communicate with the viewer and / or with each other. Ideally the software can be modified and works across a variety of platforms. To give you an idea of recent related work, this paper examines software for historic architecture “Outside Inn: Exploring the Heritage of a Historic Hotel through 360-Panoramas” MDPI Heritage 2023, presentations using 3D: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/6/5/232

Student Skills and Background:

● Essential:
○ Experience with 3D media, panoramas and html scripting

● Desirable:
○ JavaScript

Expected Deliverables:
● Project leading to an academic publication and working proof of concept

Project Duration: 3 – 6 months IVE collaborators: Erik Champion

Project 21: Augmented Reality Workflows and Prototype Tools for Museums

Develop a simple and clear visual workflow or software wizard to provide non-programmers from the museum sector a way to visualize how their historic collections can be interacted with via AR phone-based software, ideally software that does not require downloading specialised apps (for example, works in the browser). It is ideally useful for android or apple phone-based operating systems, and allows for interactivity. The aim is to use this tool or schema in workshops with museum (GLAM) people to help them develop AR-based games even if they don’t have programming or interaction design experience. A way to gather data on how the tool or examples could be used would be an added benefit.

Student Skills and Background:

● Essential:
○ Skills in diagrams or mockups

● Desirable:

• ○  Interest in Augmented Reality for Android or Apple or other.
• ○  Interest in interaction design/user experience design Expected Deliverables:

● A workflow, a demo, and material for possible academic paper for a conference or a journal.

Project Duration: 3 – 6 months IVE collaborators: Erik Champion

Playing With The Past (2011) archived

The above may take awhile to load but yes, my first book (based on most of my PhD, but not the stats) can now be read on the Internet Archive.

Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums [GLAM]-focussed Games and Gamification

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

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

Erik Champion
Chapter 12: Assassin’s Creed As Immersive and Interactive Architectural History

CAA2024 Session on Archaeogames

#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

PhD scholarship: Heritage Tours (Adelaide)

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 Erik Champion, Dr. Susanah Emery and Dr. Michele Jarldorn.

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

Milan in June 2023

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 19^th-21^st 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

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

• Champion, E. (2022). Reflective Experiences with Immersive Heritage: A Theoretical Design-Based Framework. In A. Benardou & A. M. Droumpouki (Eds.), Difficult Pasts and Immersive Experiences (pp. 23-40). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003200659 
• Champion, E., Nurmikko-Fuller, T., & Grant, K. (2022). Alchemy and Archives, Swords, Spells, and Castles: Medieval-modding Skyrim. In R. Houghton (Ed.), Teaching the Middle Ages through Modern Games (pp. 175-200). De Gruyter Oldenbourg. https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/9783110712032 

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

• Champion, E., & McCallum, S. (2022, 20-23 November 2022). Game Design Prototyping Workshop: Brainstorming and Designing Collaborative and Creative Game Prototypes with Immersive Surfaces ACM ISS 2022, Wellington, New Zealand. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3532104.3571472

PhD Project Call, no fees

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

invited talk

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

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).

PhD scholarship available

A Framework for Developing Educational Games in and with Australian Museums

This PhD project focuses on reviewing challenges and successes in Australian museums (MOD, National Maritime Museum and the South Australian Museum) with the aim to develop a participatory open-ended game framework to encourage greater engagement, wider audiences, and increased visitation, as well as reuse of content, data, and related media.

The successful candidate will focus on either the evaluation and framework based on interviews, surveys and workshops with museum experts, or on developing overall game mechanics examples (game prototypes) showcasing best practice game techniques for showcasing Australian museum content, promoting reuse.

This project is funded for reasonable research expenses. Additionally, a living allowance scholarship of $28,854 per annum is available to Australian and New Zealand citizens, and permanent residents of Australia, including permanent humanitarian visa holders. A fee-offset or waiver for the standard term of the program is also included. For full terms and benefits of the scholarship please refer to our scholarship information.

URL here.

Immersive Challenges for Museums & Heritage Sites

I will give a talk tonight via Zoom to UniSA IVE colleagues on the above topic.

Time: 4PM

2022 IVE Research Seminar Series

Please join our next IVE Seminar.

Presenter:

Prof. Erik Champion

Enterprise Fellow, UniSA Creative

Title:
Immersive Challenges for Museums and Heritage Sites

Abstract:

This talk will cover recent and persistent challenges facing museums, practical issues with the implementation of virtual reality, games and gamification, and some case studies exploring potential solutions, particularly in the area of cultural heritage.

Bio:

Erik Champion is currently Enterprise Fellow (Architecture, Creative) at the University of South Australia; Emeritus Professor at Curtin University; Honorary Research Professor at ANU; and Honorary Research Fellow at UWA. He was recently a chief investigator on 4 Australian Research Council grants, Curtin University’s first UNESCO Chair (of Cultural Visualisation and Heritage) and Visualisation theme leader and Steering Committee member of the Curtin Institute for Computation. 

https://people.unisa.edu.au/Erik.Champion

Date & Time: 5 April 2022 (Tuesday) 4pm (Adelaide ACST — Australian Central Standard Time UMT +9 hours 30 minutes)

Where: Zoom

CAA 2022, Oxford

This year the Computing Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Conference is running in person in Oxford, UK and virtually. CAA2022 will be held 8-11 August 2022.

If you are interested, CAA2022’s first session is calling for papers on cultural presence. Elaine contacted me about this for the last CAA (that was postponed) and it sounds very interesting so, hopefully, some of you can make it. You can also submit individual papers to CAA2022.

S01: iN Deep: Cultural Presence in Immersive Educational Experiences (Other)

Elaine A Sullivan, University of California Santa Cruz

Sara Perry, Museum of London Archaeology

Paola Derudas, Lund University

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR) technologies are increasingly incorporated into university classrooms and public education in the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums). The potential to use these technologies to engage students and the public with archaeological knowledge (such as site reconstructions, artefacts, or re-imagining the activities of past peoples) is exciting, but these forms of representation, including the use of individual headsets, tablets, and personal mobile phones, come with particular challenges. In his book Critical Gaming (2015), Eric Champion argued that virtual realities should express ‘cultural presence,’ the meaning and significance of a time, place, or object to people of the past.

Hyper-reality, photogrammetry, and ever-increasing levels of ‘accuracy’ in 3D models do not inherently convey aspects of cultural significance and meaning, and many VR/AR/XR experiences fall dramatically short of the goal of expressing the importance of past places and things to
their original communities. Emphasis on technological and (especially) hardware innovation often deflects attention from critically engaging with questions of meaning-making.

This panel asks those creating or intensely using Archaeology VR/AR/XR to focus NOT on software, hardware, or the latest technical innovations, but on how we as archaeologists can better design, create, or curate experiences that inspire and educate students and the public on the cultural importance of archaeological spaces, objects or themes.

What are successful techniques to aid a visitor to better understand the original context of an object now placed in a (often far off) museum or gallery? How can university instructors incorporate the (problematically individual) headset or mobile experiences into pedagogy to provide meaningful and active student learning? How can complex data be usefully layered or curated so that multiple types of museum visitors or classes could find it informative and emotionally resonant? How can we turn these increasingly popular technologies into serious spaces of cultural learning and curiosity, moving beyond the initial ‘wow’ factor

Format
Instead of traditional 20 minute talks, we request that participants present 8-10 minutes in depth on one VR/AR/XR experience they have designed and/or utilized in a university or GLAM setting (not a general review of multiple types of work). We ask participants to present and explain aspects of design and interaction and their intent in that experience; or, if the content was not designed by the presenter, how content was incorporated, curated, or enhanced for the classroom or GLAM experience.

Specifically, we ask presenters to think thoughtfully and critically about how we might collectively learn to use these technologies in more informed ways, including: What types of interactions with students or the public have shown promise, and how might we build on those successes? What practices have not worked, and how might we learn from our failures? What particular aspects of archaeological and cultural heritage knowledge are best emphasized in the VR/AR/XR experience? What is key to re-using content created by others, including content created by non-archaeologists?

The session will be divided into four sections:

• 1st group of presentations, ~five presenters (10 minutes per presentation)
• a ~30 minute ‘hands-on’ period** where participants and the audience will be able to engage/interact directly with the presented content from both presentation groups
• 2nd group of presentations, ~five presenters (10 minutes per presentation)
• concluded by a ~30-minute Q&A session for the full group of presenters and audience

We hope this format will allow the audience to engage directly with the content before opening up the session for questions and comments. The goal is to turn this session into a workshop that helps all present work more critically with VR/AR/XR content and improve how we communicate scholarly information at the university and GLAM setting.

**We therefore ask participants to commit to bringing their discussed content uploaded or downloadable in some format that can be shared directly with others: including (but not limited to) VR headsets, Google cardboard, AR apps pre-installed on tablets or smart phones, etc.

References
Champion, E. (2015). Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

new book project in screen tourism and landscapes

With two fine co-editors our edited book proposal on the above topic has been through the review process and judged fit for publication with helpful and positive comments.

It still has to pass the publisher editorial meeting in January but our editor there does not see any problems. Given we still need formal approval, I hope to announce more details in a month or so. We do still need a chapter or more on Asia but otherwise I am very happy with our authors and draft chapters. Congratulations everyone!

New Book Out In The Wild

I know I have talked about it enough but I finally have a hardcover copy in my hands…

Rethinking Virtual Places

Download/Print Leaflet

by Erik M. Champion

Published by: Indiana University Press

Book

Living Digital Heritage 2021

I was given the honour of opening Living Digital Heritage conference with a keynote today and full congratulations to Frederik Hardtke and the other organizers at Macquarie University’s Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage & Environment (twitter @cachemq) in Sydney, a great range of papers, all presented on Zoom. Finishing Sunday 7 November (when I fly to South Australia to take on a new role so I may miss a little of it).

If you are interested you may be able to follow via the above twitter links, I don’t know if they still accept registration but it was free.

update: ‘Rethinking Virtual Places’ Proof Approved

I mentioned in the below post that I was on the home stretch with this book (in the Indiana University Press Spatial Humanities series), final proof was approved by me this week. I also noticed it was over 107,000 words. Thanks to Dean and Professor Marc Aurel Schnabel for the comments on the back.

“An essential contribution to a very current topic.” —Marc Aurel Schnabel, Victoria University of Wellington

If anyone wishes to review or consider ‘Rethinking Virtual Places‘ for courses please contact Indiana University Press or email me.

Final touches to next book

Virtual Heritage: A Guide

“Virtual Heritage: A Guide” is published and open access!

Why did we write it? For all those interested in an introduction to virtual heritage, but facing steep purchase costs for academic books, so it is especially suitable for university undergraduate courses. Download what you need, for free.

And given it was written from go to whoa in less than a year and to a tight word limit, I am very grateful to the authors for their time…

Cite: Champion, E. M. (ed.) 2021. Virtual Heritage: A Guide. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://lnkd.in/gNkNWiB. License: CC-BY-NC.