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Three Phases of Digital Holocaust Memory Development

By Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden Through artificial intelligence, machine learning, crowdsourcing, digitisation, VR, AR and computer games, we take you on a tour of some of the world’s most prolific digital Holocaust memory initiatives by way of the theory of the ‘three stages’ of development. To argue that there are three phases of digital Holocaust memory development is not to suggest a clear and simple historical chronology from the 1990s – when digital technologies were first introduced into this arena – to now. Rather, this proposition offers a framework for mapping the different types of approaches organisations take when adopting digital media for the sake of Holocaust memory. These three phases are: the experimental, the normative, and the connective, and they define the different relationships organisations have with digital technology and cultures through their work. Let’s take a closer look at each of them. Experimental Phase This phase acknowledges periods of enthusiasm for a new medium, often led by a ‘what if?’ curiosity among a handful of digital advocates or a desire to shake up the status quo. During this phase, creators are explorative and playful with a medium’s possibilities, they’re not afraid to take risks and can be inquisitive [...]

By |2024-11-11T14:29:45+00:0023 October 2024|
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Beyond the Single Story, Part 2

by Austin Xie, International Junior Research Associate, The University of Chicago, in conversation with Prof Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden Austin Xie has spent two months at the Landecker Digital Memory Lab on the University of Sussex’s International Junior Research Associates (IJRA) programme. He tells us about what he’s learned and elaborates on the design of his own Holocaust-themed game, along with the ethical challenges he encountered. Dr Victoria Richardson-Walden: you’ve been working on a practice-based research project considering the challenges and opportunities the medium of computer games might offer to Holocaust memory and education.  What did you learn from studying existing games? Austin Xie: The majority of Holocaust games fall into two categories: Nazi-killing games, and what I’d consider more Holocaust memory games than Holocaust games. They take place after the Holocaust, and usually involve a character trying to uncover the story of a relative by investigating artefacts or talking to people. Their gameplay is that of remembering the Holocaust, rather than the Holocaust itself. Games other than the Nazi-killing ones circumvent the problem of a Holocaust victim/survivor game through a variety of strategies, like setting the game after the Holocaust, creating a fictional world that is an allegory for the [...]

By |2024-11-08T16:55:03+00:0018 September 2024|
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Beyond the Single Story: How Computer Games can Transform Holocaust Education

by Austin Xie, International Junior Research Associate, The University of Chicago Austin Xie is spending two months with us here at the Landecker Digital Memory Lab as part of the University of Sussex’s International Junior Research Associates (IJRA) programme. Here, in the first of two blogs, he tells us about himself and his plans. I’ve loved games my whole life. In elementary school, that meant the imagination games I played with friends and our own innovation of freeze tag (’freeze or tag’ — freeze everyone, or pass it on). In middle and high school, it became the video games we played and those we fantasized about designing. So later, at the University of Chicago, it was a magical moment for me to see and take Critical Videogame Studies as part of my English major—and shortly after, cross-listing it with my newly declared second major: Media Arts and Design (MAAD), with a ‘cluster focus’ in games. That same kind of magic manifested in my eyes during my first Zoom meeting with Dr. Victoria Grace Walden, here at University of Sussex in the Landecker Digital Memory Lab, when she said I could work with games. She noticed that ‘look’ instantly. That magic comes from the things [...]

By |2024-11-08T17:45:26+00:0025 July 2024|
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Shaping the Future Use of VR, AR and Computer Games in Holocaust Memory

by Dr Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden As more Holocaust institutions feel emboldened to incorporate digital media into their practices, it is increasingly urgent that there are clear guidelines to help shape their thinking. In response to this urgency, the new Landecker Digital Memory Lab has arrived and begins by publishing the final two recommendation reports  of the Digital Holocaust Memory Project's previous work. They offer guidelines for a more sustainable approach to using virtual and augmented reality, and computer games for Holocaust memory and education. The latest reports mark the completion of the set, which broadly looked at digital interventions in Holocaust memory and education (read the other recommendations here, which cover AI and machine learning, digitising material evidence, social media and digitally recording, recirculating and remixing Holocaust testimony). The reports ask provocative questions of those responsible for the future of Holocaust memory: major tech companies, policymakers, academia, and Holocaust museums, memorials and archives. Key recommendations from the two latest reports, ‘Virtualising Holocaust Memoryscapes’ and ‘Gaming and Play’ include: conduct thorough research into the impact of digital Holocaust projects establish technology working groups to help propel development in this field create spaces to share knowledge and ideas provide training and support [...]

By |2024-11-08T17:54:38+00:0011 July 2024|
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Interactivity in Holocaust Memory

When digital media was still being called new media, it was often referred to also as interactive media. The suggestion was, even by those critical of this term, that what distinguished this medium from others was its interactivity even if the interactivity was somewhat illusionary. This of course paved the wave for assertions that pre-digital media was and continues to be passive, whilst digital media introduces radically new ways to turn audiences into active users. Television and film audiences, newspaper and magazine readers, and museum visitors have always been active in one way or another. Digital media may offer new and different forms of activity, but it also continues and introduces methods of ideological control of audiences too. We would best think about interactivity via a number of spectra: From user agency to creator control (although we should never assume users can have fully independent agency in a way that means creators lose all control and vice versa) From cognitive activity to full-body involvement (and vice versa, from simply gestural involvement to bodily engagement which encourages critical thought) From encounter (dialogue) to a more networked, collective form of participation (although again we must be sceptical of the idea of full [...]

By |2024-11-11T15:35:23+00:0010 June 2021|
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Student Competition: Thinking about Computer Games and the Holocaust

In December 2020, I had the honour of teaching students at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. As part of their course, we ran a competition to ask them to apply what they had learnt about computer games and the Holocaust to a proposal for a new game. This blog introduces the winning pitches.

By |2024-11-11T15:40:25+00:0022 January 2021|
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Digital Holocaust Memory – Online Discussion

On Wednesday 15th July 2020, we invited a series of academics who work on digital Holocaust memory in different ways to discuss their research. You can see each of their presentations below: Imogen Dalziel is in the final stages of her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, investigating how the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has adapted to the digital museum. Under normal circumstances, she is also part-time Administrator for the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway; a freelance Educator for the Holocaust Educational Trust; and a volunteer for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Over the last academic year, Imogen has also co-taught undergraduate modules on the history of the Holocaust at The University of Birmingham.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0eamOxfcsQ   Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls is a Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Genocide Investigation and Director of the Centre of Archaeology at Staffordshire University. Her research in digital Holocaust memory centres on the role of non-invasive survey techniques in the location, documentation and visualization of Holocaust landscapes. As a field archaeologist, she has completed the first archaeological surveys and 3D visualisations of the former extermination and labour camps in Treblinka (Poland), the sites pertaining to the slave labour programme in Alderney (the Channel [...]

By |2024-11-11T14:38:25+00:0024 July 2020|
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Contact

Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk

Contact

Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk

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