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|

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|

Playing the Holocaust – Part II

In late 2020, we hosted an academic discussion about the Holocaust and computer games called Playing the Holocaust - Part I. As a follow-up to that event, in early 2021, we brought together a variety of speakers working on the creation of such projects. Below you can watch the speaker's presentations from this event and find out more about how games designers, their collaborators, and museums have approached making games about this sensitive history. Our first speaker was Jörg Friedrich a game designer from Berlin and co-founder of Paintbucket Games, an independent game studio that made the historical resistance sim Through the Darkest of Times. Before he founded his own studio, Jörg worked for 15 years in creatively influential roles on big production games like Spec Ops:The Line, Dead Island or Drakensang. Jörg is also a freelance lecturer of game and narrative design at a number of schools and universities. https://youtu.be/zGUWSt7CYzk   Next up, Noemie Lopian and games designer Dan Hett spoke about their work translating her father's experiences into a computer game. Dr Noemie Lopian is the daughter of Holocaust survivors Dr Ernst Israel Bornstein and Renee Bornstein. In the last few years, she has dedicated her time [...]

By |2024-11-11T15:29:13+00:008 September 2021|
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