The General Assembly for the International Council on Monuments and Sites is in Sydney 31 August to 9 September: https://icomosga2023.org/ and I am presenting and co-chairing the Digital Heritage session (Tuesday 5th and Thursday 7th September), hope to see you there!
Early bird registration is still available.
Between 1-9 September I visit ICOMOS General Assembly in Sydney as a co-chair of the Digital Heritage session (the schedule is up on https://icomosga2023.org/).
Somewhere between September and December (or even into 2024), I will be invited to Trondheim in Norway by a dear friend and leader of echoing.eu archaeologist Aleka Angeletaki to give a talk on my latest book (well, 2nd edition, Playing With The Past: Into The Future) and also a workshop on game prototyping. Dates have not been set yet but I believe they will let me take a short side trip.
ICOMOS GA 2023 Scientific Symposium abstracts are due 23 September [update: now 30 September].
I’m looking for reviewers in the digital heritage theme to help with abstracts-English and / or French and / or Spanish readers.
Those interested in reviewing Digital Heritage abstracts can email me for more information.
A new open-access article by Mr Mafkereseb Bekele, a PhD student at Curtin University and his three supervisors (myself, Dr David McMeekin and Dr Hafizur Rahaman): “The Influence of Collaborative and Multi-Modal Mixed Reality: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage” https://mdpi.com/1390992#mdpimti via @MDPIOpenAccess
Studies in the virtual heritage (VH) domain identify collaboration (social interaction), engagement, and a contextual relationship as key elements of interaction design that influence users’ experience and cultural learning in VH applications. The purpose of this study is to validate whether collaboration (social interaction), engaging experience, and a contextual relationship enhance cultural learning in a collaborative and multi-modal mixed reality (MR) heritage environment. To this end, we have designed and implemented a cloud-based collaborative and multi-modal MR application aiming at enhancing user experience and cultural learning in museums. A conceptual model was proposed based on collaboration, engagement, and relationship in the context of MR experience. The MR application was then evaluated at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum by experts, archaeologists, and curators from the gallery and the Western Australian Museum. Questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and observation were used to collect data. The results suggest that integrating collaborative and multi-modal interaction methods with MR technology facilitates enhanced cultural learning in VH.
Keywords: mixed reality; virtual heritage; collaborative interaction; multi-modal interaction; engagement; cultural learning
by Ikrom Nishanbaev Erik Champion and David A. McMeekin
Nishanbaev, I., Champion, E., & McMeekin, D. A. (2021). A Web GIS-Based Integration of 3D Digital Models with Linked Open Data for Cultural Heritage Exploration. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10(10), 684. https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/10/10/684
In recent years, considerable efforts have been made by cultural heritage institutions across the globe to digitise cultural heritage sites, artifacts, historical maps, etc. for digital preservation and online representation. On the other hand, ample research projects and studies have been published that demonstrate the great capabilities of web-geographic information systems (web-GIS) for the dissemination and online representation of cultural heritage data. However, cultural heritage data and the associated metadata produced by many cultural heritage institutions are heterogeneous. To make this heterogeneous data more interoperable and structured, an ever-growing number of cultural heritage institutions are adopting linked data principles. Although the cultural heritage domain has already started implementing linked open data concepts to the cultural heritage data, there are not many research articles that present an easy-to-implement, free, and open-source-based web-GIS architecture that integrates 3D digital cultural heritage models with cloud computing and linked open data. Furthermore, the integration of web-GIS technologies with 3D web-based visualisation and linked open data may offer new dimensions of interaction and exploration of digital cultural heritage. To demonstrate the high potential of integration of these technologies, this study presents a novel cloud architecture that attempts to enhance digital cultural heritage exploration by integrating 3D digital cultural heritage models with linked open data from DBpedia and GeoNames platforms using web-GIS technologies. More specifically, a digital interactive map, 3D digital cultural heritage models, and linked open data from DBpedia and GeoNames platforms were integrated into a cloud-based web-GIS architecture. Thus, the users of the architecture can easily interact with the digital map, visualise 3D digital cultural heritage models, and explore linked open data from GeoNames and DBpedia platforms, which offer additional information and context related to the selected cultural heritage site as well as external web resources. The architecture was validated by applying it to specific case studies of Australian cultural heritage and seeking expert feedback on the system, its benefits, and scope for improvement in the near future.
I’m giving a virtual lecture for DHGraz Wednesday 6 October 2021 (tomorrow): “We’re delighted to welcome @nzerik this Wednesday, who will open our Lunchtime Lecture series with an online talk on “Games as Serious Visualisation Tools For Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage and Immersive Literacy”
More info: https://informationsmodellierung.uni-graz.at/de/neuigkeiten/detail/article/online-lunchtime-lecture-30.-juni-2021-1200-uhr/
Not recorded but slides are here https://www.slideshare.net/nzerik/games-xr-dhgraz-talk-06102021
Taking inspiration from the ‘small is beautiful’ mantra of the
1970s which provoked counter-cultural economic and scientific expertise in the name of planetary survival, this symposium invites scholars working on computational methods in the arts, humanities and social sciences to discuss their research with ‘small data’.
Big data is often characterised by the volume, speed and aggregation made possible by automated and intensive computational systems, and over the last decade, data scraping methods and ‘large N’ studies have become dominant trends in socio-cultural digital research. Conversely, small data may be characterised by their limited volume or greater diversity of anomalous patterns, case studies, and research collected manually to answer specific questions.
This concept of “small is beautiful” has a distinctive history and place in the humanities and creative arts, producing specific (if not unique) works and critical commentary in archives tied to the authorial or artistic signature. From a social science perspective, small data may be associated with some forms of qualitative methods, marginalia, ephemera, data that ‘glows’ or narrative analysis of ‘small stories’.
Moreover digital platforms with readily accessible technologies are recomposing scale in unprecedented ways. Such approaches giverise to new possibilities for mass circulation of intimate gestures and the affordances of transnational and first person voices that may not identify with colonising structures or professional institutions of art, culture and political organisation.
Hosted by the Australian Cultural Data Engine, the Narrative Network and the Victorian College for the Arts, this interdisciplinary symposium seeks to nurture and advance our understanding of small data that involves human-scale analyses, thinking about aesthetics, and exploring how narratives emerge from data patterns and their anomalies.
Key questions guiding the event are: how do interactions with small data shape and inspire transformations of knowledge in the twenty-first century? Who collects, owns and curates small data? And when and where does small data hold power? What kind of actions, or play, are possible with small data? Which stories can be told with small data?
Proposals are invited for a two-day symposium with panels, presentations and demonstrations at the Digital Studio, University of Melbourne and online.
Topics may include:
• Collecting as little as possible: how small is small?
• Data domestics
• Fragmented or aberrant data
• Data as ritual, data as performance
• Bio-data, body data
• ‘Smart’ data
• Disruptions from data instances
• Small data art and aesthetics
• Small data industries
• Small data and subjectivity
• Miniaturisation of digital means
• Histories of small data curation
• Small data ethics
November 12-13, 2021 at the Digital Studio, Arts West building, University of Melbourne, Australia
FORMAT: The symposium will include a mix of in-person and online formats. Keynote presentations and some panels will be scheduled online for the morning sessions (AEST) with other sessions face to face in Melbourne in the afternoon of November 12 and 13 (COVID restrictions permitting).
We hope to facilitate a sense of shared understanding and conversation over the two days, and for this reason preference will be given to those who are able to attend both days of the event.
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: please send a 250 word-abstract and bio marked “Small Data” to: digital-studio@unimelb.edu.au before September 30, 2021.
The conference fee is $50 full and $25 students and which will cover catered lunches and afternoon tea. There are a small number of bursaries for interested participants without the financial means to attend (conditions apply).
Registration details will be circulated at a later date.
“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.
A major game company (I’d say a global company, not in Australia) invited me to quote/ setup an international advisory board in relation to intangible heritage and digital games to meet annually or biannually virtually or in reality. It is a bit of a challenge looking forward to estimate the budget in this time of pandemics, lockdowns, and border control issues.
#CFP http://euromed2020.eu 8th Internatonal Conference on Digital Heritage, 2-5 November, 2020, technically Cyprus but online (virtual), free. Papers due 15 September.
Papers published in LNCS by Springer.
Co-chairs Marinos Ioannides (UNESCO Chair, Digital Cultural Heritage), Eleanor Fink (ex Getty Digital), Lorenzo Cantoni (UNESCO Chair in ICT) & me!
Fantastic keynotes: http://euromed2020.eu/keynote-speakers
Plus workshops:
Workshop 1 – Registration is mandatory for all, free participation – (Date to be announced)
Title: The 2nd EU Workshop on how digital technologies can contribute to the preservation and restoration of Europe’s most important and endangered cultural heritage sites.
Workshop 2 – Registration is mandatory for all, free participation – (Date to be announced)
Title: The 5th International Workshop on 3D Research Challenges in Cultural Heritage to be organized by the EU H2020 ERA Chair Mnemosyne project.
Cultural heritage journals, especially digital heritage journals (and a few related conferences) don’t fare well at SJR-Journal Search. Compare their H-index and Quartiles to games journals and conferences. In the more VR side of things, Presence still does quite well but Virtual Reality journal is not doing as well as I expected.*
*CAVEAT: In many cases the latest figures seem to be from 2017 or 2018.
February 17-18, 2020, The CREASE
University of South Australia, Kaurna Building Level 2, City West Campus
This workshop will explore examples of how the application of digital technologies in the humanities, built environment, creative arts and design are affecting how heritage environments are studied, preserved, shared and celebrated. The advent of technologies such as LIDAR (Laser scanning of natural and built environments), Virtual and Augmented Reality and immersive interactive environments, in areas such as site data collection, site visualisation and heritage exhibitions, are transforming how we study heritage environments and experience them both in situ and elsewhere. These changes have implications in diverse domains, including archaeology, anthropology, museology, tourism, architecture, restoration and education.
Day 1 Monday February 17, 2020
13:00 Welcome to Country
A/Prof. Jane Lawrence, Head: School of Art, Architecture and Design
13:15 Introduction to the day, Prof. Simon Biggs
13:30 Keynote: Prof. Erik Champion, Curtin University, Perth (Chair: Prof. Ning Gu)
Prof. Champion is UNESCO Chair of Cultural Heritage and Visualisation, and Professor of Media Culture and Creative Arts, in the Humanities Faculty of Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.
14:45 Q&A
15:00 coffee and networking – Catered by Folk Lore
15:30 Burra Digital Heritage Project: Dr. Julie Nichols and Darren Fong
16:30 Discussion
17:00 Drinks at West Oak Hotel
Day 2 Tuesday February 18, 2020
09:00 coffee and networking – Catered by Folk Lore
09:30 Presentation 1 – Dr. Aida Eslami Afrooz – Time Layered Cultural Map project
10:15 Presentation 2 – CAD Walk – immersive environments for heritage simulation
11:30 Presentation 3 – Dr. Gun Lee – Augmented Reality in Outdoor Experience
12:15 Discussion
12:30 Lunch – Catered by Folk Lore
13:30 Presentation 4 – Sahar Soltani – The HYVE (in the HYVE)
14:15 Presentation 5 – Ben Keane and Alex Degaris Boot – AR for Heritage (in CCS)
15:00 coffee and networking
15:30 Discussion
16:00 end.
I gave a keynote Monday 9 December at Dhdownunder 2019, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia. The title was Digital Heritage: Presenting Futures Past
The slides can be viewed and downloaded in the nzerik directory at slideshare.
MAIN POINTS
To cut over 80 slides short, my answers to the initial questions are
I suggest future research and potential solutions are
I was indirectly asked at the Humanities, Arts and Culture Data Summit and DARIAH Beyond Europe workshop, 27-29 March 2019, Canberra, whether the most important question /priority/importance was Technology or Culture.
Now a day and an Australian State later, I may have slightly misinterpreted the question or the intention behind it but I thought I would answer here because
I have fairly specific ideas of culture and cultural heritage and technology.
And what does technology do? It helps the passing down and preservation of these cultural objects and non-objects. I don’t separate technology and culture, because culture needs to control the art of production, of bringing things into existence and keeping them there. When culture becomes consumer production but the production is not part of the cultural life cycle of creator and community, that is where culture weakens, and we could blame that on technology, but that is because we have started thinking of technology as an impartial, neutral, scientific way things have to be. Where tangible heritage or intangible heritage is created by people and needs to be valued, preserved and appreciated by future people, technological factors are never impartial and purely scientific, because technology is there to serve people not machines.
Let me give you another example, when I talk of a digital scholarly ecosystem, digital humanities people understand what I mean, a programmer I spoke to could only think of ecosystem as supplying people with computers and other digital devices and ensuring they always had the latest model and the manufacturers could charge as much as possible to resolve for their shackled customer this perceived and designed obsolescence. That is not what I mean by a digital ecosystem because the users are continually charged with replacing and learning the device itself, they will have little time to actually build, value, communicate and preserve something.
Now I do worry that we increasingly see technology as meaning digital technology, and there are commercial and academic reasons to focus on the equipmental, because funding is more straightforward and goes through fewer people who can raise their careers and profiles. Culture does not have to employ digital technology, and we straitjacket and possibly impoverish it if we continue to think of data as only digital (data predates digital) and technology as only digital (again, techne is a concept from Ancient Greece).
However, they don’t generally make these objects and they don’t generally ensure these objects and non-objects are maintained and used. And this, I think, is a problem for digital humanities, we have few ways to value these people and the work they do and the communities they serve.
And in our session yesterday a professor said there should be a Centre of Excellence in Digital Cultural Heritage in Australia. The audience reaction was highly favorable then and in the tweets afterwards. And someone like me should surely agree, right? I have been writing and designing and teaching about digital cultural heritage for two decades. Well yes and no. I believe it should happen and come from the GLAM sector and indigenous and other local communities, because they are the best guardians and trustees.*
A Centre of Excellence will raise the profile and increase the collaboration potential of academics and academic groups, but it also implies if you are not in a Centre of Excellence you are not excellent. Is that what digital heritage should support? I think it should be bigger: a National Collaborative Research Infrastructure, or equivalent, supported and driven by the GLAM sector, perhaps helped in focus by academics. Once you have your NCRIs, build your Centre of Excellence around that. Because a Centre of Excellence of digital cultural heritage would and should be huge, it may be better to have smaller and more directed Centres of Excellence. Are there not enough humanities academics in Australia to apply for more than one?
* I see humanities as being larger than humanities academics and researchers. I believe it also includes the creators, the preservers and the audience. At humanities research infrastructure meetings we are asked what we want, but surely this is tied to the problem of what is best for Australian humanities, creators and communities?
NB thus blogpost has been modified, just to stick to the topic and will be modified again when I think of a few more qualifying statements.
New Realities: Authenticity & Automation in the Digital Age 3rd International Congress & Expo 26-30 October 2018, San Francisco, USA http://www.digitalheritage2018.org/
WHAT
The leading global event on digital technology for documenting, conserving and sharing heritage—from monuments & sites, to museums & collections, libraries & archives, and intangible traditions & languages. Featuring keynotes from cultural leaders & digital pioneers, a tech expo, research demos, scientific papers, policy panels, best practice case studies, hands-on workshops, plus tours of technology and heritage labs.
FOCUS
Culture and technology fields from computer science to cultural preservation, architecture to archiving, history to humanities, computer games to computer graphics, archaeology to art, digital surveying to social science, libraries to language, museums to musicology, and many more.
WHO
Some 750+ leaders from across the 4 heritage domains together with industry to explore, discuss & debate the potentials and pitfalls of digital for culture. Heritage and digital professionals, from educators to technologists, researchers to policy makers, executives to curators, archivists to scientists, and more.
WHERE
In the heart of the digital revolution on the waterfront in San Francisco, USA. For the first time outside Europe following our 1st Congress in Marseille in 2013 and 2nd in Granada in 2015.
DUE
Workshop, Tutorials & Special Session Proposals Due online: 15 April 2018
Papers & Expo Proposals Due online: 20 May 2018
Notification: 15 July 2018
Camera Ready Deadline: 1 September 2018
Digital Heritage/Archaeology
Digital Humanities
See also https://adho.org/publications which lists
Books and Book Series
NB Is UWM also a Digital (book series) publisher? http://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1/
Our internal small grant (School of Media Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University) was successful!
Here is a synopsis of the application (redacted):
Digital Heritage, Scholarly Making & Experiential Media
We propose
The above would help progress the below research projects:
| START | *DUE* | CONFERENCE | THEME | LOCATION |
| 17-Nov-16 | 19-Aug-16 | DIGRAA2016 | Digital Games Research Association Australasia | Melbourne Australia |
| 31-Jan-17 | 22-Aug-16 | ACSW2017 | Australasian Computer Science Week 2017 | Geelong Australia |
| 14-Mar-17 | 26-Aug-16 | CAA2017 | Digital Archaeologies Material Worlds (call for sessions) | Atlanta Georgia USA |
| 19-Dec-16 | 31-Aug-16 | TAG | Theoretical Archaeology Group – “Visualisation” sessions | Southampton UK |
| 27-Nov-16 | 01-Sep-16 | VICTA | Visions on Internet o f Cultural Things and Applications | Naples Italy |
| 15-Feb-17 | 01-Sep-16 | MuseumNext | MuseumNext | Melbourne Australia |
| 06-May-17 | 14-Sep-16 | chi2017 | Computer Human Interaction | Denver Colorado USA |
| 25-May-17 | 30-Sep-16 | otsf | The Archaeology of Sound: a Bridge that Connects Cultures, Time & Space | Malta |
| 24-Apr-17 | 07-Oct-16 | EG2017 | Eurographics 2017 | Lyons France |
| 03-Mar-17 | 09-Oct-16 | AMC IUI | intelligent user interfaces | Limassol Cyprus |
| 03-Apr-17 | 19-Oct-16 | www2017 | World Wide Web 2017 | Perth Australia |
| 10-May-17 | 01-Nov-16 | 2D+3D photo | 2D+3D photography | Rijksmuseum, Netherlands |
| 20-May-17 | 15-Nov-16 | Technoheritage | Science & Technology for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage | Cádiz Spain |
| 01-Aug-17 | 21-Nov-16 | ISEA2017 | International Symposium on Electronic Art | Manizales, Columbia |
| 27-Jun-17 | 06-Jan-17 | CC2017 | ACM Creativity and Cognition | Singapore |
| 28-Aug-17 | 01-Feb-17 | CIPA 2017 | Digital Workflows for Heritage Conservation | Carleton Canada |
| 30-Aug-17 | 27-Mar-17 | DCH2017 | Digital Cultural Heritage | Berlin Germany |
| 15-Jun-17 | ? | CDH | Centre of Digital Heritage | Leiden Netherlands |
| 26-Jun-17 | ? | ilrn2017 | immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN | Coimbra Portugal |
| 10-Jul-17 | ? | DiGRA2017 | Digital Games | Melbourne Australia |
| 08-Aug-17 | ? | DH2017 | Digital Humanities 2017: Access | Montreal Canada |
| 02-Nov-17 | ? | HASTAC17 | The Possible Worlds of Digital Humanities | Orlando Florida |
| 24-Jun-18 | ? | DH2018 | Digital Humanities 2018 | Mexico |
Elsevier have kindly let me and others download the below article from the Journal Entertainment Computing, (Volume 14, May 2016, Pages 67–74) up until 21 April 2016. From 22 April it will be behind the Elsevier paywall again.
http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Se406gYiZRYG4
No sign up or registration is needed – just click and read!
Title: Entertaining The Similarities & Distinctions Between Serious Games & Virtual Heritage Projects
Abstract:
This article summarizes past definitions of entertainment, serious games and virtual heritage in order to discuss whether virtual heritage has particular problems not directly addressed by conventional serious games. For virtual heritage, typical game-style entertainment poses particular ethical problems, especially around the simulation of historic violence and the possible trivialization of culturally sensitive and significant material. While virtual heritage can be considered to share some features of serious games, there are significantly different emphases on objectives. Despite these distinctions, virtual heritage projects could still meet serious games-style objectives while entertaining participants.
For research fellows and other scholars who have a PhD awarded after 1 March 2010, please consider applying for a Curtin Research Fellowship (there are also indigenous and senior research fellowships for those with a PhD awarded before 1 March 2010):
http://research.curtin.edu.au/conducting-research/curtin-research-fellowships/
The internal expression of interest deadline is June 4 (the head of a school or centre has to support the application).
Please note this is a very competitive scheme.
I’m particularly interested in talking to researchers who focus on virtual heritage, digital archaeology, game design, VR evaluation, machinima, digital humanities, interaction design or similar subjects that could take place in the Humanities..
Erik Champion 