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In terms of viewing digital embodiment and VR as empathy machines, the Dangerous Embodiments software did not necessarily achieve that end for me. As we discussed briefly in class, the game modeled an open world exploration experience (with no goals or interactions) and gameplay was the same regardless of chosen character. The default view–following the backside of the character so you can never see their face–actually distances you quite a bit from your character with whom you attempt to empathize; in effect, the whole empathy element of the game becomes refigured by superficiality. However, there might be some merit to this kind of distanced and equalizing embodiment. At one point playing as the female slave in the plantation world, I discovered a door that would not open, and later came to find that the door was also glitchy for the male plantation owner as well (I had expected the door to be accessible to the male owner). Perhaps the act of bringing my own expectations to the game is educative in of itself, even as gameplay remains unchanged through different characters’ perspectives.

An entirely different experience of digital embodiment for me was engaging with the MakeHuman software. Given the ability to sketch up pauper avatars in a matter of minutes, I quickly became concerned with the level of detail at which users could exert control. Put in conversation with historical accuracy and authenticity, this sort of granularized avatar creation urges users to make guesses without adequate background knowledge. What nose height or eye distance should we give Mary Jones, a question we ask while we have virtually no physical descriptions of her in our archives? Clearly it’s a difficult question, and yet the software encourages uninformed choices in the name of experimentation– lest our pauper be given default characteristics.

The Virtual St Paul’s Cathedral Project has ambitious goals if it wants to “enable us to experience worship and preaching at St Paul’s Cathedral and in Paul’s Churchyard as events that unfold over time and on particular occasions in London in the early seventeenth century.” On the website, these goals only come to us in constituent parts, through playable audio recordings, image captures, text-heavy descriptions, and a painstakingly slow flyover video. As such, it is not immersive or a “fun” game-play experience online. However, the version physically installed at NC State sounds more immersive. The promised experience of being surrounded by St. Paul’s sights and sounds does seem more achievable in a physical room than a flyover video. Hopefully the effects of the room will give them an atmosphere to strive for online as they continue to develop the project.

It is also worth noting that the visual and audio models meticulously represent aspects of St. Paul based on thorough historical research. Furthermore, the project’s creators are well aware that it is a work in process, so it seems unfair to evaluate it as a final product.

Sources:

“Overview.” Virtual St. Paul’s Cathedral Project: A Digital Re-creation of Worship and Preaching at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Early Modern London. Accessed February 9, 2018. https://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu/.

The purpose of the Virtual St. Paul’s Cathedral Project was to “explore public preaching…enabling us to experience a Paul’s Cross sermon as a performance…in real time”. At first sight, the project seems to be a product-based question because the player “experiences” a digitally-created performance from the 17^th century. However, upon further investigation, this project was more intended to explore process-based questions. The makers dwelled on how they transformed a rough rendering of a church yard into a historically accurate church yard with sounds and sights. They mainly grappled with the “formative discussion and development” section of their project where they make clear distinctions of where they used historical information, made approximations and recreated lost experiences. This helped them contend with their own assumptions of how the Paul’s Cross sermon looked and sounded like. I appreciated how they acknowledged their own biases in interpreting this event and were open different models with other interpretations of the same event, but I had some hesitations regarding whether the process-based question they pursued was effective in allowing greater public accessibility.

Since the purpose of the project was not meant to be a game-like experience, it seems irrelevant to determine whether or not they fulfilled the humanities scholarship or “fun” experience balance. However, looking at the website alone, it wasn’t very accessible or cohesive. It was not very user-friendly and on the website pages, there was a lot of text with the same terms bolded. The acoustics part of their project was not added to the visual “fly over” videos, making my experience of the fly-around not very unified. Thus, although not all “serious games” must meet a game-like experience, I wonder what the best way is to engage with humanities scholarship while remaining accessible to a larger audience.

I explored the University of Arkansas’ digital recreation of the House of Prince of Naples, one of the houses in Pompeii. This particular model is focused on the murals on the walls, and two versions (one during the day, and the other at night) illustrates the placement, location, etc of the murals in a way that a picture or other 2D reconstruction would struggle with. Their goal seems to be more academic, with this model being part of a larger effort to build a database of visual art references. With that intention, this model serves that purpose.

Given the more academic context in which this is presented, it seems unfair to judge it for it’s accessibility towards a more general audience. However, it still is engaging. I absolutely geeked out over this experience, having learned a bit about these murals and the styles in a Roman archaeology and art class I took last year. This would have been a handy tool for my professor to use when teaching. Furthermore, if desired, it could be remodeled to fit a general public audience. A choice to further explore the styles and subjects of the murals by a pop up or other mechanic, would inform the audience as to what they are walking through while still being able to explore the space.

The Virtual St. Paul’s Cathedral Project by North Carolina State University is one of the most in-depth projects I’ve seen in this class. There are literally web pages upon web pages of information on the research and development process behind the experience, and as such, it is extremely accurate to its source material. As an academic tool, there is little wrong with the project. That being said, the project’s main issue is in the accessibility and interactivity in the final product. Users can only fully experience the project when they are in one location, for starters (and I’m not fully sure if the installation is still running today). Furthermore, the final product (which I am presuming to be the digital model of the church and a sermon) cannot be fully understood (at least, to the level the creators want) without supplemental lectures and other tools. Also, in terms of interactivity, there virtually isn’t any, other than listening and watching the video. While this piece may work well in a museum, and offers a lot to learn, it’s not an interactive piece of media like Walden, and so I don’t think anyone outside of academia would actively seek out this product.

In the project “Virtual Pompeii,” I felt I was able to gain a first-person perspective of what domestic life might have been like in Pompeii at the time. One can walk around the model, see the small pool in one of the main rooms on the ground floor, go upstairs and look over the courtyard, and see the candles spread across the house to illuminate it at dark. These things help to show, in a much more intimate fashion than many other mediums, what daily routines might have been like.

However, this is about all that this project does for me. It gives essentially no other information about life in Pompeii, or specifically the famous volcanic eruption that occurred there. While this project does put you in the shoes of someone in Pompeii better than many other mediums, it doesn’t really tell you about import events of the time, or much else outside of home life. At the same time, with a static model, there is only a relatively small fixed space for the user to explore and become bored quickly.

I think that adding some kind of simulation of the volcanic eruption that one could experience from inside the house would have greatly benefitted the project. Through this, you would not only be able see daily home life of a person at the era, but you would also get to experience a first-person account of an important historical event in a more intimate fashion than something like a historical paper. This would also lend itself to a more “fun” game-like experience, as it would add a dramatic element to the project.

Through each iteration of historical games or advancement of historical representations in video games, consumers and scholars alike have needs that may or may not be met by developers. Consumers might care more about playability, the “fun” factor,  or engagement, whereas scholars look for historical accuracy, proper representation of the time period, and authentic immersion of the player into a virtual world. Walden: A Game, I think does a fair job in attempting to cater to both. The game sets you in a first person role of interacting with the environment and combines it with a historically authentic experience.

The world around you is minimal yet captivating, it is stripped of just as Thoreau’s experience would have been. It allows for players to look for items such as books, notes, artifacts, and rewarding players for finding those. In those items, you gain information that can help players delve into the world and life that Thoreau was living in. This game was clearly not created to please consumers, but rather to educate and provide a playable virtual world for players to explore in Walden: A Game. The game does accomplish its goal of being used as an educational tool to explore an authentic open world. Although some might chalk up Walden: A Game, as a boring, open space game with no real mission, it is important to recognize that the developers did a good job in sticking to historical accuracy, rather than changing gameplay or compromising the games historical authenticity in order to cater to people who might critique it as a boring game.

I chose the colored apron that was given to Mary Collins on January 30th 1796. A different colored apron also appeared in the Staplehurst Kent Inventory taken in October of 1806. When displaying this object in the context of a museum, it would be interesting to identify that the colored apron belonged to an individual pauper, as that evokes a sense of connection with individuals within the workhouse, allowing for more compassion and empathy. Including an interactive element where visitors would get to dress up in pauper’s uniforms would help visitors understand the feeling of wearing the clothes and having their choices limited. Then, allowing one of the visitors a colored apron, saying they had been “well-behaved”, demonstrates how the parish functioned to promote hard-work and good manners. The colored apron then demonstrates how parishes functioned as total institutions, restricting individuality, while also demonstrating how parishes did serve to aid the poor and allow them not only basic necessities but also occasional frivolities.

In the third ward at St. Sepulchre’s workhouse in 1751, a clock was listed in the inventory. No information is given about the clock other than that it was held in a Wainscot case. Wainscot was a term used for riven oak boards which were used because of their lighter weight as well as desirability in maintaining their shape. Using this basic description, as well as the location of the object, the clock would likely have not been very ornate but rather fairly basic and practical with simple decorations. Images of clocks from that time and location suggest that the oak might have been stained or colored in some way as well. The clock stands out as none of the other ten or so wards have clocks listed. At the same time though, the clock seems like a good symbol for life in the workhouse as it represents the strictly regimented days the residents are subject to. In a museum display, the clock could be used to symbolize pauper life in the workhouse. It can represent the strict timetables residents must adhere to and the long work hours they are subject to. Additionally, the clock would likely have been made by some sort of mechanic or more skilled laborer which were jobs probably out of reach for many of the poor in the workhouse who were subject to intense manual labor.

I chose to focus on a colored apron, which was found both in the Staplehurst workhouse inventories and the St. Andrew Undershaft records which we used for our pauper biographies.

In terms of it being presented in both physical and digital forms, a dual approach would be particularly interesting. This could be an object that would be purely on display, but it could also be integrated in an exhibit where visitors could try on and experience the clothes firsthand with replicas. This would be much more of an experience, though difficulties might arise in the making of the exhibit.

As for the digital side, that too has a great deal of potential. An image or even a 3D model of a person wearing everyday wear, including the apron, would aid in understanding the period visually. Furthermore, digitally it becomes significantly easier to illustrate how a colored apron would be special. Having multiple people in plain aprons with one person in a colored apron in an image, etc. gives the visitor a better context and understanding of the significance that the apron is colored, as opposed to a single item on display.