A summary of my rationale, efforts and ambitions for using computer games to engage with landscape and heritage.

1. Second Site
engaging with landscape through
computer games
Keith Challis
IBM Vista, University of Birmingham
www.vista.bham.ac.uk/games
secondsiteresearch.blogspot.com

2. an alternative
to serious games?

3. an alternative to serious games?
• use of FP games has a long
pedigree in cultural heritage
research

4. an alternative to serious games?
Bob Stone
• games as mediums of training and communication
• scientific visualisation
• simulation

5. an alternative to serious games?
Dan Pinchbeck
• games as research artifacts
• rejection of rules
• subversion of form
• exploration of narrative structure/made meanings

6. Eddo Stern
• fusion of games, installation art and
performance
• challenges to perception and engagement
• breaking the medium
an alternative to serious games?

7. an alternative to serious games?
Robert Overweg
• games as the subject for artistic
representation

8. an approach

9. VISTA
• Working in CryENGINE,
CityScape, Source and Unity
• Workflows to leverage remote
sensing and survey data into
game-based visualisation
• In-game use of GIS-derived
landscape data/analysis
• Experiments in landscape
texturing derived from remote
sensing
an approach

10. • Visualise and explore the
wealth of high-density digital
landscape data
• Create sensory engagement
with landscape and heritage
• Invite active exploration of
data and meaning
an approach

11. an approach
an archaeology of landscape
• "the real work [in the study of landscape] is
accomplished by the men and women with muddy
boots..." (WG Hoskins)
• like Hoskins we "explore England on foot"

12. an approach
uniting quantitative/qualitative
• a virtual phenomenological approach?
• quantitative data driven visualisation
• qualitative, sensory exploration of data/meaning

13. an approach
GIS beyond the map
• games extend GIS analysis
• explore hypothetical scenarios
• interactivity invites engagement not voyeurism

14. ambitions

15. • can use of games
facilitate a novel
approach to landscape?
• fusion of digital
heritage, story and
artistic representation
• abandon rules of time
and linearity
• mapping a new landscape
of engagement
ambitions

16. ambitions
• community-focused digital
heritage
• open-source digital data
creation
• community history, stories
and folklore
• collected and mediated within
an open-ended game
environment
• focus on a major historic
city and river valley

17. http://www.vista.bham.ac.uk/Divisions/Games.htm
http://secondsiteresearch.blogspot.com/