The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places
Author: Erik Malcolm Champion
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2018-10-26
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1351603612

This collection of essays explores the history, implications, and usefulness of phenomenology for the study of real and virtual places. While the influence of phenomenology on architecture and urban design has been widely acknowledged, its effect on the design of virtual places and environments has yet to be exposed to critical reflection. These essays from philosophers, cultural geographers, designers, architects, and archaeologists advance the connection between phenomenology and the study of place. The book features historical interpretations on this topic, as well as context-specific and place-centric applications that will appeal to a wide range of scholars across disciplinary boundaries. The ultimate aim of this book is to provide more helpful and precise definitions of phenomenology that shed light on its growth as a philosophical framework and on its development in other disciplines concerned with the experience of place.

Rethinking Virtual Places

Rethinking Virtual Places
Author: Erik M. Champion
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0253058368

How would the humanities change if we grappled with the ways in which digital and virtual places are designed, experienced, and critiqued? In Rethinking Virtual Places, Erik Malcolm Champion draws from the fields of computational sciences and other place-related disciplines to argue for a more central role for virtual space in the humanities. For instance, recent developments in neuroscience could improve our understanding of how people experience, store, and recollect place-related encounters. Similarly, game mechanics using virtual place design might make digital environments more engaging and learning content more powerful and salient. In addition, Champion provides a brief introduction to new and emerging software and devices and explains how they help, hinder, or replace our traditional means of designing and exploring places. Perfect for humanities scholars fascinated by the potential of virtual space, Rethinking Virtual Places challenges both traditional and recent evaluation methods to address the complicated problem of understanding how people evaluate and engage with the notion of place.

The Psychosocial Reality of Digital Travel

The Psychosocial Reality of Digital Travel
Author: Ingvar Tjostheim
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3030912728

This open access book takes a fresh look at the nature of the digital travel experience, at a time when more and more people are engaged in online social interaction, games, and other virtual experiences essentially involving online visits to other places. It examines whether these experiences can seem real to the virtual traveller and, if so, under what conditions and on what grounds. The book unpacks philosophical theories relevant to the feeling of being somewhere, emphasising the importance of perception and being-in-the-world. Notions of place are outlined, based on work in tourism studies, human geography, and other applied social fields, with an aim to investigate how and when different experiences of place arise for the traveller and how these relate to telepresence – the sense of being there in another place through digital media. Findings from recent empirical studies of digital travel are presented, including a survey from which the characteristics of “digital travellers” are identified. A review of selected interactive design trends and possibilities leads to the conclusion, which draws these strands together and looks to the future of this topical and expanding field.

HCI in Games

HCI in Games
Author: Xiaowen Fang
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 547
Release: 2020-07-10
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3030501647

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on HCI in Games, HCI-Games 2020, held in July 2020 as part of HCI International 2020 in Copenhagen, Denmark.* HCII 2020 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publication after a careful reviewing process. The 38 papers presented in this volume are organized in topical sections named: designing games and gamified interactions; user engagement and game impact; and serious games. *The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtual Realities

Virtual Realities
Author: Stuart Marshall Bender
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2021-09-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030825477

Virtual Realities presents a ground-breaking application of phenomenology as a critical method to explore the impact of immersive media. Specific case studies examine 360-degree documentary productions about trauma, virtual military simulations, VR exposure therapy for anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder, and the emerging debate about regulating violent content in immersive media gaming. By addressing these texts primarily as experiences, Virtual Realities deploys an analytic and critical methodology that is sensitive to the bodily and cognitive impact of immersive media, especially via the body of an appropriately attentive researcher-critic. Virtual Realities provokes a rethinking of many of the taken-for-granted ideas and assumptions circulating in the field of immersive media. These include concepts of empathy, embodiment, the affective impact of textual and immersive properties on the users’ experience, as well as the “gee-whizz” mentality often associated with approaches to the medium. The case studies provide fresh engagement with immersive media such as cinematic VR at a time when dominant attitudes about the technology display an evangelical fascination with VR and other mixed realities as inexorably beneficial. Virtual Realities makes a compelling case for VR-phenomenology to be employed as a methodology by humanities scholars and also in cross-disciplinary applications of immersive media in fields such as psychology, human-computer interaction studies and the health sciences.

Place, Space and Hermeneutics

Place, Space and Hermeneutics
Author: Bruce B. Janz
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2017-03-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319522140

This book analyzes the hermeneutics of place, raising questions about central issues such as textuality, dialogue, and play. It discusses the central figures in the development of hermeneutics and place, and surveys disciplines and areas in which a hermeneutic approach to place has been fruitful. It covers the range of philosophical hermeneutic theory, both within philosophy itself as well as from other disciplines. In doing so, the volume reflects the state of theorization on these issues, and also looks forward to the implications and opportunities that exist. Philosophical hermeneutics has fundamentally altered philosophy’s approach to place. Issues such as how we dwell in place, how place is imagined, created, preserved, and lost, and how philosophy itself exists in place have become central. While there is much research applying hermeneutics to place, there is little which both reflects on that heritage and critically analyzes a hermeneutic approach to place. This book fills that void by offering a sustained analysis of the central elements, major figures, and disciplinary applications of hermeneutics and place.

Handbook of Research on Inclusive and Innovative Architecture and the Built Environment

Handbook of Research on Inclusive and Innovative Architecture and the Built Environment
Author: Peng, Ng Foong
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2023-06-19
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1668482541

There is an urgent need to emphasize inclusivity in architecture and the built environment. Innovative technologies within the field of architecture are being developed to enhance inclusivity in architectural approaches and development processes. It is essential to research inclusivity in architecture and the built environment toward holistic sustainable development. The Handbook of Research on Inclusive and Innovative Architecture and the Built Environment discusses inclusive and innovative approaches to providing socio-cultural value within architecture and the built environment. It focuses on issues of diversity, sustainability, resilient designs, and more. Further, the book expands the knowledge and awareness of architecture and the built environment towards inclusivity in design development and emerging advanced technology. Covering topics such as architectural challenges, global health, and urban morphology, this major reference work is an excellent resource for architects, government officials, urban planners, practitioners, students and educators of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

Playing with the Past: Into the Future

Playing with the Past: Into the Future
Author: Erik Champion
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2023-01-01
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3031109325

Since the turn of this century (and even earlier), a plethora of projects have arisen to promise us bold new interactive adventures and immersive travel into the past with digital environments (using mixed, virtual or augmented reality, as well as computer games). In Playing with the Past: Into the Future Erik Champion surveys past attempts to communicate history and heritage through virtual environments and suggests new technology and creative ideas for more engaging and educational games and virtual learning environments. This second edition builds on and updates the first edition with new game discussions, surveys, design frameworks, and theories on how cultural heritage could be experienced in digital worlds, via museums, mobile phones, or the Metaverse. Recent games and learning environments are reviewed, with provocative discussion of new and emerging promises and challenges.

Virtual Heritage

Virtual Heritage
Author: Erik Malcolm Champion
Publisher: Ubiquity Press
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2021-07-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1914481011

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments.

Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes

Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes
Author: Erik Champion
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2022-12-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 100082635X

This book explores ways in which screen-based storyworlds transfix, transform, and transport us imaginatively, physically, and virtually to the places they depict or film. Topics include fantasy quests in computer games, celebrity walking tours, dark tourism sites, Hobbiton as theme park, surf movies, and social gangs of Disneyland. How physical, virtual, and imagined locations create a sense of place through their immediate experience or visitation is undergoing a revolution in technology, travel modes, and tourism behaviour. This edited collection explores the rapidly evolving field of screen tourism and the affective impact of landscape, with provocative questions and investigations of social groups, fan culture, new technology, and the wider changing trends in screen tourism. We provide critical examples of affective landscapes across a wide range of mediums (from the big screen to the small screen) and locations. This book will appeal to students and scholars in film and tourism, as well as geography, design, media and communication studies, game studies, and digital humanities.