Playability for archaeology

Erik Champion from Aarhus made a good point by stating that the three threats of archaeological information are storage, dirability and playability in his keynote at the 3rd U21 Digital Humanities Workshop in Lund earlier this week. The observation is well in line with the earlier suggestions that the best way to ensure the preservation of a particular data set is to see that it is being used. At the same time, however, it puts more emphasis on the aspects of the usability of the data and possibilities to not just use data but to be playful with it. It is of course possible to begin to make references Johan Huizinga and homo ludens, but at the same time it is a question of rather plain idea of making the information useful in a slightly more elaborate manner than just putting some undefined data out there somewhere. Later during the second/third day of the workshop Fredrik Larsson from Archgame Studio elaborated the practical side of the same line of thought in his presentation about an interesting archaeologically informed computer game (hope this is a sensible description of the game project) Grimr.