the body and the brain
Talk to Digital Culture students
@University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
15 April 2013
Civilization comprises the laws that allow
people to live close together, in a city, civitas.
Culture is what is cultivated or allows one to
cultivate a setting, a local domain.
…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.
irtual meetings no more interesting than re
ones so why recreate mundality?
Non digital-interactivity sometimes better than the digital
• Spengler wrote “This machine technics will
end with the Faustian civilization and one
day will lie in fragments, forgotten -- our
railways and steamships as dead as the
Roman roads and the Chinese wall, our
giant cities and skyscrapers in ruins like old
Memphis and Babylon.”
• space and memory are inextricably linked
• memory is more a jigsaw than filing cabinet
• memory decay can be challenged
• games help multi-tasking
• biofeedback can help evaluation
Caption: The flow of object information in a monkey brain (left) and a human brain.
Credit: Sabine Kastner, Princeton University
Humans See Tools Differently Than Other
RNA Game (Wired magazine) “EteRNA”
• Computers don’t have flashes of insight. But the
human brain can..for gamifying RNA.
• One proposal they kicked around was to have
snippets of RNA fight each other to the death,
in the style of a Japanese combat game called
Senshuken; another was to create a first-person
experience in which players navigated the world
as RNA molecules of their own design.
prototyping for ownership
Klaus Birk Roman Grasy
media architecture biennale
15 November 2012, Aarhus
Skyrim game can host virtual recreations
(of Nordic stories or any other), the player
can control the avatar, and issue voice
commands recognised by the game).
Inhabitants can be easily reprogrammed to
share stories. Trading, praying, conversing
healing etc are possible, not just violence.
Skyrim + body
Eric Fassbender PhD thesis project, scripted
tour guide of lighthouse, Macquarie
Second Life and VR tracker and googles see
Georgia Tech Project
University of Queensland: project by year 3
multimedia students, Amy and Isaac, Team
“new media…offers enormous possibilities
for the enhancement and enrichment of
heritage experience and interpretation”
Y. E. Kalay, T. Kvan, & J. Affleck, New Heritage: new media and cultural
heritage. New York: Routledge, 2008.
“Qin” literally refers to a unique seven-string Chinese music
instrument “Guqin”, which was invented 3,000 years ago in
Daoism is an ancient Chinese combination of religion, philosophy, and folk
beliefs, including ritual healing. Its different strands of belief date far back in
history. Daoism is deeply entwined with Chinese culture and history.
• to be a scholar or a master is to be an
artist, measured by one’s grasp of the “Four
• The “Four Arts” are Music (“Qin”), the
board game (“Qi”), calligraphy (“Shu”), and
brush painting (“Hua”).
• Helped “perceive the ultimate doctrine of
the heavens”, “make themselves [be]
enlightened”, “express their emotions/their
understanding of the doctrine”, and “inspire
others” so that their lives achieve peace and
Z. Dainian, Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2002.
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
What are the Five Elements in the traditional Chinese
What are the Five Basic Tones in the traditional Chinese
What are the traditional Chinese philosophical concepts
revealed by Go?
Which one of the following features is one of the main
features of Chinese character writing system? ]
Cuneiform / [ ] Alphabet / [ ] Pictography / [ ]
What are the tools for Chinese traditional painting?
Very difficult to recreate original action scenes and
moments of discovery as game devices.
Chinese players, familiar with a distorted version of
the original, not aware their cultural knowledge was
not accurate, did not appreciate being told this.
Recreating linear narrative via game design is
OR: simulate the procedural knowledge of rituals
and symbol-making via thematically-akin interaction..
what is needed: more comprehensive pre-test and post-test questionnaire.
Ambient movies react to the player’s physiological changes -by biosensors.
The general questions are too vague.
Consider changing from rating games to ranking them.
Test extrapolated knowledge rather than memory of simple facts.
Examine how tacit knowledge can be learnt and evaluated.
Compare tests between touch-screen and non-touch screen games.
A more 3D interface: sculptures, HD projection on rice paper or liquid
media, with 3D audio effects and ambient movies projection.
Can interactive digital media convey and evaluate tacit knowledge?
Dutch thriller App sends
to your phone additional
why not have
biofeedback sent back to
• when your character dies, why not have the
death spasms relate to the heartbeat-GSR?
• or only respawn when you calm down..
• reactions relate to heartbeat
• enemies attack peripherally sensing fear
• when you start shaking you lose your
character or change between ethnic profile
• Cinematic camera views=biofeedback
• you can only convince NPCs when calm
sew some characters
Kuthodaw Paya: must walk around Buddhist
description of universe-biggest book in the worldbut aesthetic experience being eroded