Second Site

engaging with landscape through computer games

Keith Challis

IBM Vista, University of Birmingham

www.vista.bham.ac.uk/games

secondsiteresearch.blogspot.com

an alternative

to serious games?

an alternative to serious games?

• use of FP games has a long

pedigree in cultural heritage

research

an alternative to serious games?

Bob Stone

• games as mediums of training and communication

• scientific visualisation

• simulation

an alternative to serious games?

Dan Pinchbeck

• games as research artifacts

• rejection of rules

• subversion of form

• exploration of narrative structure/made meanings

Eddo Stern

• fusion of games, installation art and

performance

• challenges to perception and engagement

• breaking the medium

an alternative to serious games?

an alternative to serious games?

Robert Overweg

• games as the subject for artistic representation

an approach

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

• 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

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"

an approach

uniting quantitative/qualitative

• a virtual phenomenological approach?

• quantitative data driven visualisation

• qualitative, sensory exploration of data/meaning

an approach

GIS beyond the map

• games extend GIS analysis

• explore hypothetical scenarios

• interactivity invites engagement not voyeurism

ambitions

• 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

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

http://www.vista.bham.ac.uk/Divisions/Games.htm

http://secondsiteresearch.blogspot.com/