The Interactive Past

Angus Mol is a post-doctoral researcher. He works on the theory and methodology of past and present socio-material networks, ranging from entanglements at Çatalhöyük and cultural encounters in the Caribbean, to the materiality of online multiplayer games. His writings have appeared at Sidestone Press, in a number of international journals, and, as Dr. Random, on valueproject.nl.Dr Csilla E. Ariese is a museologist with an interest in decolonial practices, community engagement, maritime archaeology, and video games. Her PhD dissertation (2018, Leiden University) explored Caribbean museums and the practices and processes through which they engage with a diversity of communities. Her recent postdoctoral research at the University of Amsterdam focused on the Amsterdam Museum and how it deals with the colonial pasts of its collections and the city. She is a co-founder of the VALUE Foundation, among others organizing the RoMeincraft project and curating the Culture Arcade exhibition. Her publications span the topics of decolonizing museums, Caribbean museums, interactive pasts, and VOC shipwrecks in Australia.Dr Krijn Boom started his career with a PhD on the sociocultural impact of public activities in archaeology. Subsequently, he was a post-doctoral researcher in heritage management at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University and Project Manager Blended Learning at the University of Amsterdam. Krijn also co-founded the VALUE project - for research and outreach on the past, heritage, and video games. Currently, Krijn is an education consultant and publisher for Acco, a Flemish academic publishing company. Here, he combines his love for digital innovations in the didactic process with established media, in an ongoing quest to find the optimal ways to transfer knowledge and engage audiences.Aris Politopoulos is a lecturer for the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, and a postdoctoral researcher at the Leiden University Center for Arts in Society working on the Past-at-Play Lab project. His research focuses on ancient Near Eastern empires, the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean, the archaeology of Play, and the archaeological study of video games. He is also a co-founding member of the VALUE Foundation and has published extensively on the topic of video games and archaeology.

Video games, even though they are one of the present's quintessential media and cultural forms, also have a surprising and many-sided relation with the past. From seminal series like Sid Meier's Civilization or Assassin's Creed to innovative indies like Never Alone and Herald, games have integrated heritages and histories as key components of their design, narrative, and play. This has allowed hundreds of millions of people to experience humanity's diverse heritage through the thrill of interactive and playful discovery, exploration, and (re-)creation. Just as video games have embraced the past, games themselves are also emerging as an exciting new field of inquiry in disciplines that study the past. Games and other interactive media are not only becoming more and more important as tools for knowledge dissemination and heritage communication, but they also provide a creative space for theoretical and methodological innovations.The Interactive Past brings together a diverse group of thinkers - including archaeologists, heritage scholars, game creators, conservators and more - who explore the interface of video games and the past in a series of unique and engaging writings. They address such topics as how thinking about and creating games can inform on archaeological method and theory, how to leverage games for the communication of powerful and positive narratives, how games can be studied archaeologically and the challenges they present in terms of conservation, and why the deaths of virtual Romans and the treatment of video game chickens matters. The book also includes a crowd-sourced chapter in the form of a question-chain-game, written by the Kickstarter backers whose donations made this book possible. Together, these exciting and enlightening examples provide a convincing case for how interactive play can power the experience of the past and vice versa.