Field Notes (7): XR and the Digital Humanities

Erik Champion on Extended Reality’s Relevance to the Digital Humanities

Field Notes: Highlights digital tools, articles, books, and resources for historiographical video game design and production.

Digital games pioneer Erik Champion’s chapter, “DH-XR: Extended Reality’s Relevance to the Digital Humanities,” in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Technology and the Humanities (2024), explores how virtual, augmented, and mixed reality can enhance historical research, education, and cultural heritage preservation.

Champion argues that XR technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the digital humanities, allowing for more immersive and interactive engagement with historical and cultural content. He posits that XR can bridge the gap between academic research and public interest, making historical narratives more accessible and engaging.

Opportunities

By leveraging the strengths of VR, AR, and MR, digital humanities can offer more dynamic and interactive experiences that resonate with contemporary audiences. Immersive XR environments enable users to experience the past in ways that static texts and images cannot. For instance, virtual reconstructions of ancient cities allow users to explore and interact with the historical urban environment, gaining a deeper understanding of the historical contexts of space and place.

This is particularly significant for heritage sites that are either inaccessible or have deteriorated over time. Through VR, for instance, users can virtually walk through ancient ruins or witness historical events as if they were present in the past. AR can also bring museum exhibits to life, providing interactive layers of information that enrich the visitor’s understanding and engagement in ways that conventional wall text does not.

Challenges

Technical challenges persist, as creating high-quality immersive experiences requires significant computational power and sophisticated software development. Moreover, the fidelity of XR experiences depends heavily on the accuracy and richness of the underlying digital models and data.

XR technology must also be made more accessible to people with disabilities by incorporating inclusive design practices prioritizing universal usability, such as screen readers and voice control systems. Although they are underdeveloped, virtual environments with audio descriptions for visual content and closed captioning for audio elements are also necessary.

XR developers also need to ensure that representations and interpretations of historical and cultural content are accurate, respectful, and inclusive, avoiding perpetuating historical inaccuracies or cultural stereotypes.

Even more importantly, equal access across income levels is an essential and difficult need to address. XR technologies need to be designed and distributed in ways that are affordable and accessible to a broad audience, ensuring that individuals from all socioeconomic backgrounds can benefit. Mobile phones, high-speed wireless, and cheaper pixel-streaming technological solutions may emerge. If so, XR could significantly contribute to the digital humanities landscape.

Concluding Thoughts

Champion stresses the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in overcoming these challenges, suggesting that a confluence of expertise across disciplines is essential for successfully integrating XR into the digital humanities.

Champion envisions XR becoming a standard tool in digital humanities research and education. He posits that the immersive and interactive nature of XR has the potential to revolutionize the way the humanities are studied, taught, and experienced. This will necessitate pedagogical approaches integrating XR into the curriculum, providing students with hands-on experiences that complement conventional learning methods.

References

Champion, E. (2024). DH-XR: Extended Reality’s Relevance to the Digital Humanities. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Technology and the Humanities (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003195269

United States Government Accountability Office. “Extended Reality Technologies.” Science & Tech Spotlight. Washington, DC, January 26, 2022. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105541