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Mobile devices in heritage, why not?

Ages ago I surveyed people about mobile gaming and heritage. The results were not encouraging for my thesis, because interest in mobile gaming seemed low. Just under 200 people completed the survey, and most of them had at least heard of Minecraft (just 5% had not). But when asked about the most popular location-based game at the time, Ingress, the vast majority, 178 people (81.3%) hadn’t even heard of it. Since then of course Pokemon Go happened. Continue reading →

Personalised

I am in Amsterdam, staying in a VERY EXPENSIVE HOTEL, because all the hotels in Amsterdam are VERY EXPENSIVE. We are here on a cultural city break, to take the kids to Anne Frank’s house, and the Van Gogh museum, among others. We pre-booked for those two because we had heard it was difficult to get tickets on the day. Yesterday, as we were packing to leave, I got an email from the Van Gogh museum. It contained a link to a “welcome video”. Continue reading →

Numinous

I’ve been head down, completing my upgrade package for weeks and so you have seen very little form me on this blog. But that package was submitted last Friday, and this week, I am at the University’s Hartley Residency, which is a refreshing opportunity to just learn and think. Yesterday we had a seminar, and then a lecture form Steven Rings, of the University of Chicago. Continue reading →

Dialogue

I thought I was done with Staiff, but he keeps dragging me back in! These are my final thoughts, I promise. The final chapter however is a doozy, and contains at least a couple of quotes I’ll want to squeeze into my dissertation. To be honest I thought Staiff had lost me with his celebration of “Gabriel’s” mash up in my previous post. Continue reading →

Are we all cyborgs? Digital media and social networking

Continuing with my reading of Staiff’s Re-imagining Heritage Interpretation, I come to his chapter on digital media and social networking. He wastes little time on those who “persist wit the idea that podcast audio-tours and GIS-activated commentries care just extentions of ‘old’ ways on interpreting material culture, but simply using digital techniques,” rather (writing in 2014, remember) Staiff is a champion of “Web 2. Continue reading →

Russell Staiff: Re-imagining Heritage Interpretation

When I had just started my research, in 2014 this book was published, literally down the road from where I live. So why I only discovered it a few weeks ago is a mystery. despite being published in my home town, I had to arrange an inter-library loan to get it from Leeds University Library. So, now I have to whizz through it, pulling out his thesis, and some choice quotes to illustrate it, before I have to send it back. Continue reading →

The Navigation of Feeling

“What are Emotions?” is a question asked by William Reddy (2001) in his book The Navigation of  Feeling: A Framework for the History of History of Emotions. The first part of that books looks at the answers, from Cognitive Psychology in the first chapter, and Anthropology in the second. He points out early, however that: Western specialists who study emotion cannot even agree on what the term emotion means. Continue reading →

Smart conservation

Yesterday, to Oxford, to meet with the brilliant Niki Trigoni, who among many other things founded Navenio, a company that provides infrastucture free mobile location analytics. It occurred to me, during our conversation, that there is a case for MLA in heritage sites that may be stronger than the story delivery that I’ve seen concentrating on. Continue reading →