VHEs require cultural agents? How to distinguish social from cultural agents?  Cultural agents meet VHE/DC objectives? See https://digitalheritageresearch.wordpress.com/conference/

1. Inside Out: Avatars, Agents,
Cultural Agents
Erik Champion, Curtin University
Researching Digital Cultural Heritage, Manchester
30/11-1/12/2017 #digheritage17

2. Defining Cultural Agents for
Virtual Heritage Environments
1. VHEs require cultural agents?
2. How to distinguish social from cultural agents?
3. Cultural agents meet VHE/DC objectives?Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments,
Vol .24,Issue 3, Summer 2015 p.179-186
Nathan Mathers (Ross McNamara) a news archivist abandoned in a basement
by his TV station has worked himself into the ground, and begins seeing
himself in old news reels. A spectre of a reporter (Lilly Brando) hangs over
him with a grudge, but what kind of mind games is she playing with him? Will
he get out? Does he want to?

3. We also NEED to Review Visualisation
The London Charter (p. 12) defined
“computer-based visualisation” as
‘‘The process of representing
information visually with the aid of
computer technologies.”
Reproducing artefacts is not enough.
I counter-argue:
Virtual heritage is the attempt to
convey not just the appearance but
also the meaning and significance of
cultural artefacts and the associated
social agency that designed and used
them, through the use of interactive
and immersive digital media.
•

4. Virtual Heritage Preserves?
My definition does not list
preservation and conservation as
a primary aim of virtual heritage.
Due to:
1. lack of stable and updateable
technology
2. the motivations of the project
designers;
3. virtual heritage’s abysmal
record in actually creating,
preserving and disseminating
heritage content and cultural
significance.
Beyond Space & Time GONE!
http://www.geek.com/news/expore-the-virtual-forbidden-city-
courtesy-of-ibm-593731/

5. Cultural significance
• CAN VHEs convey cultural
significance without a
contextualised form of
cultural knowledge?
• Current VHES lack
powerful agency:
intelligent agents primarily
used as guides.
• SOCIAL JUDGEMENT?
• CARE??

6. Automata evoke care
Automaton "acting of one's own will"
TALOS, Dictionary of Classical Mythology By Jennifer R. March
1963 version of Jason and the Argonauts
https://www.blackgate.com/2014/07/29/ancient-worlds-argonauts-vs-the-giant-robot/

7. Vase of Talos
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Vaso_di_Talos_particolare.JPG by
Forzaruvo94, Particolare del Vaso di Talos

8. http://www.croteam.com/talos-principle-vr/
www.croteam.com/

9. Al-Jazari: The Mechanical Genius
The Elephant Clock: Leaf from a
manuscript of Al-Jazari's Kitab fi
macrifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya dated
715 H/1315 CE. (Source).
measured blood lost during phlebotomy…Two
scribes are seated above the device & their
actions describe the amount of blood to be let.
The Science and Art of Medicine (Source).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-6106905.html

10. Agents have Self-Awareness, fashion, trends, inner life?

11. How agents can help Virtual Environments
1. lead players to important landmarks
2. act as historical guides (revealing past events).
3. convey situationally appropriate behaviour.
4. Intelligent agents designed for limited forms of
conversation and typically help support a sense of social
presence rather than cultural presence.
5. For an enhanced “sense of inhabited place”, engaging
narrative, related elements, or embodiment, a cultural
agent recognizes, adds to, or transmits physically
embedded and embodied aspects of culture. They could
provide a sense of cultural presence, becoming Aware-Of-
Not-Quite-Being-‘There’.

12. Defining Cultural Agents for VHEs
1. VHE aim: communicate cultural significance
2. ‘Populate’ a VHE with intelligent agents masquerading as walk-
on characters won’t communicate cultural significance
(Bogdanovych, Rodriguez, Simoff, & Cohen, 2009)
3. Real-world culture: learnt via observation, ritual practice (which
take time) or by instruction (Csibra & Gergely, 2009).
4. Agents provide for learning by observing their actions or being
guided by their instruction, but lack granularity of expression,
individuality or rich and expressive responses.
5. Rituals hard to simulate, VHEs lack social judgement that will
teach people right from wrong and maintain cultural protocols
(Champion, 2009). Cultural presence: “the feeling of being in the
presence of a similar or distinctly different cultural belief
system.”

13. Cultural agents
could
1. Automatically select correct
cultural behaviours for
specific events or situations.
2. Recognize incorrect or correct
cultural behaviours given
specific events, locations, or
situations.
3. Transmit cultural knowledge.
4. Modify, create, command
artefacts to become cultural
knowledge.

14. Features of cultural agents
1. Culturally constrained in terms of
cultural beliefs, cultural
demarcation (time, space,
events).
2. They could understand and point
out right from wrong in terms of
culturally specific behaviour and
understand the history and
possibly also the future trajectory
of specific cultural movements.
3. Aware of transgenerational value
of culture (material objects and
intangible heritage) & try to
preserve, understand, appreciate
it.
http://www.spyparty.com/

15. BELIEFS DESIRES INTENTIONS
• in AI based on BDI, the above
are not usually directly
considered.
ADD:
1. agent-aware feelings of
community and strangeness
(belonging and exclusion)
2. relative values of tangible and
intangible cultural processes,
products and assets
3. specifically situated
embodiment (especially
important for ritual).
SKYRIM MOD? Try to disguise yourself as an NPC or
take over their role in society and see how long you last
before being discovered.

16. Design Challenge
• Agents that pass on information
about a past or distant culture
WITHOUT disrupting historic
authenticity or player engagement.
• An evaluable proof of concept
leading to realized projects that
incorporate and integrate historical
situations.
• Technology can be cutting-edge
(face tracking, speech to text
engines, biofeedback, or game-
themed situations)
• BUT support simulated content,
NOT content only to support
investigation of technology.

17. -Muggle-level Artificial stupidity
1. Do NOT need highly
refined narratives as VHE
not totally fictional
2. Great art or dramatic
Shakespeare-like
experiences not required
for VHE
3. BUT which mechanics
provide a sense of agency
AND thematic meaning?
4. Intricate narratives are
counter-productive if time
is precious.

18. -Inspector CLUE-SO (Stupid AI)
Clues uncover stories or stories can in turn be clues to find certain
objects or complete tasks.
1. Stories are not just aids or rewards for exploration, can also
convey fragility of specific sites, their situated cultural significance
& underlying universality of their content.
2. Conversational agents: site-specific or activity-specific info more
conveniently than via game-interaction & may lessen risk players
leave the VHE to read background material.
3. Human-like: evoke sense of inhabitation, scale; easy to mimic.
4. Draw attention to important events or landmarks, direct or reveal
mannerisms & behaviours, highlight places spots, affordances for
competition, or act as external memory device & tools for players.
5. In games to create competition, can also evoke empathy, develop
leadership skills (by commenting on the decisions of the player).

19. -Trade books to see
value, match books to
npc authors
Beata Dawson, Curtin PhD student (Dr
Pauline Joseph)
Your attention regards classic cars affects agents? Agents mediate between sides?

20. Spirits, Genii Loci
1. Elements can have awareness or
agency
2. Spirits=translucent shades, wax
or wane based on biofeedback,
decisions or reaction times.
3. Ghosts (NPCs) could wax or
wane depending on past or
future actions
4. Player’s corporality related to
their level of agency or
awareness of their actions
5. Collections: haunted or agency
dependent on usage or content
or NPC contamination or player
ignorance/maintenance

21. Integration
1. Cultural agents help provide a sense of
cultural presence.
2. A cultural agent recognises, adds to or
transmits physically embedded
&embodied aspects of culture.
3. Either the cultural agents interpret
cultural cues, or interaction with them
by the human visitor/player leads to a
situated interpretation of cultural cues
&wider cultural frameworks.
4. These cues could be contested or
contradictory or fragmented, but
required to convey a situated
understanding of resources,
monuments, environmental events &
behaviours in a way that both engages
and educates participants.

22. Biofeedback
BIOFEEDBACK CINEMATICS AND XRAY VISION
Idea: Biofeedback of player
can be sent to avatars and
agents
!

23. Control NPC via gestures or voice
Idea: Cultural agents informed by gesture posture territoriality & consideration to
bodily distances

24. Camera tracking
Idea: cultural agents informed by gesture posture
territoriality and consideration to bodily distances

25. 360 Panos / digital collections
• Beata Dawson, Curtin PhD student (Dr. Pauline Joseph)
Your attention regards classic cars affects agents? Agents mediate between sides?

26. Sims 4 as machinima for prototyping
Susannah Emery Honours Project (& Michele Wilson)
• Film inside games: Avatars can trigger specific character-centric back stories
• NPCs can be encouraged to create their own films

27. Rusaila Bazlamit, PhD student, (& Andrew Hutchison) VSMM2017
Protect agents inside conflict zones, observe how media changes their minds?

28. Librarycraft
Rosie Fandry (& Karen Miller)
Minecraft avatars could
be affected by the
player’s resourcefulness
Minecraft agents affected by travels and
actions of Explorer/Library user

29. Collaborative Learning-HoloLens
Mafkereseb Bekele, PhD student
2nd HoloLens user could
actually be an agent

30. Can agents augment reading/collecting?

31. 3D Printed Open-SouRce Robot
https://www.poppy-
project.org/en/robots/poppy-ergo-jr
https://www.poppy-project.org/assets/img/humanoid-skating.jpg