Angus Mol

Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities | VALUE Foundation
 https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/angus-mol#tab-2

Angus Mol combines the study of history using digital tools with the study of how today’s digital cultures are entwined with history. In particular, he studies the past in and as play, or, in other words, how we played in the past and how we play with the past today. At the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities (LUCDH) he does research and teaches on this topic as well as on other computationally-driven themes and tools.

During his PhD, on using network analyses to study the cultures of the pre-colonial Caribbean, he took an interest in how trade in online games functions and how this can be used as an analogy for studying historical network development. This was the start of a much wider exploration of the value that games hold for understanding our past and vice versa.

Together with colleagues from archaeology, heritage studies, history, and museology, Angus created the VALUE foundation. Its aim is to design, facilitate, and conduct research, development, and outreach on the crossroads of gaming and academia, with an approach characterized by playfulness and accessibility. One of their projects is RoMeincraft, a crowd-based reconstruction of the Dutch Roman border in Minecraft.

His papers and reviews bridge the interface between past, present, and play, marrying digital and data-driven approaches to game studies and critical heritage perspectives. VALUE also organizes The Interactive Past Conference (TIPC) series, featuring talks from professionals from academia and the creative industry and published as The Interactive Past. Angus and other members of VALUE livestream via Twitch on a regular basis — leading to, among many other things, a YouTube archive of over 50 hours of commentary on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. They also write popular feature articles and game reviews. All these materials and more can be accessed via Interactive Pasts.

Additional Links:

 

Social Profiles

All Sessions by Angus Mol

  • 20. Nov | Summit Day

    The Summit Day will feature talks, project presentations, panel discussions, and workshops.

  • 14:30  - 15:00
    In this paper I will explore how various forms of counterplay, an opposing or contrasting action or move within a game, defines our relation to authenticity in video games. While it may be hard to agree on what authenticity in contemporary playgrounds based on the past even means, looks like, and how it can function, playful resistance to authenticity can provide a window into our complex relation with it. I first started thinking about the foundational role of counterplay after experiencing how a participant of RoMeincraft, a crowdbased Minecraft reconstruction of the Dutch Roman borders, populated an entire fort with polar bears. The notion that we frequently toy around with ‘authentic’ histories goes beyond such virtual reconstructions. It is, for example, also at the basis of the what-if histories we find in games like Sid Meier’s Civilization and Europa Universalis or in the history re-telling of Where the Water Tastes like Wine, 80 days and The Tearoom. Counterplay starts before play itself, as it can rovide ammunition in the ‘arena of authenticity’ that needs to be mediated by historical game designers in response to their target audience before the game even launches. We see play and counterplay in game design everywhere: from the euphemistic, ‘Civ is meant to be fun’ politics of Sid Meier, to the backlash against the ‘inauthentic’ avatar choices and designs in Battlefield V, and the heated debate around the ‘whitewashing’ of mediaeval history in Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Mordhau. In short, while often placed at the core of historic game experiences, perhaps one of the main points of authenticity is that it is more interesting to play counter to it?
    20. Nov | History in Games Summit: Contingencies of an Authentic Past
    Where
    room 211

  • 16:15  - 17:15
    Panel discussion. Moderation: Felix Zimmermann
    20. Nov | History in Games Summit: Contingencies of an Authentic Past
    Where
    room 211




Share

Angus Mol