Immersive Worlds conference at Brock

What would you see if you looked at Second Life from an archaeological point of view? I asked myself that very question recently. Of course, one of the things you’d see is the enormous potential for education…. but, putting aside such instrumental uses of Second Life, and looking at it as a world in its own right, with its own cultures, you start to see some interesting things…

Here is the audio from my presentation at Brock, ‘Of Second Lives and Past Lives: Archaeological Thoughts on the Metaverse”. You can hear the points where I stop to think… somewhat like the William Shatner School of Lecture…

The file is in the .wav format because, for reasons unknown to me, the mp3 version would not upload.

Learning from Las Vegas – Archaeology in the Experience Economy

Cornelius Holtorf has written a provocative piece in the most recent “The SAA Archaeological Record (v7.3, May 2007) called ‘Learning from Las Vegas’. He writes:

“For archaeologists to take on producers of popular culture such as Hollywood and Disneyland with a view to correcting their historical or scientific “mistakes” is not only a hopeless undertaking but ultimately also counterproductive. We would put at risk one of the most siginificant assets of archaeology in the Experience Economy: its brand value.[...] Learning from Las Vegas means learning to embrace and build upon the amazing fact that archaeologists can connect so well with some of the most widespread fantasies, dreams, and desires that people have today.[...] I am suggesting that the greatest value of archaeology in society lies in providing people with what they most desire from archaeology: great stories both about the past and about archaeological research.”

I think he may well be on to something here…

(NB, I originally titled this post ‘Learning in Las Vegas’, and repeated the error in the text of the post, which undermines the point Dr. Holtorf was making, see below…)