Other Eyes: Choose your own digital archaeology paradata adventure

Introduction to the Other Eyes Twine

The OTHER EYES project (2021-2022) investigated the digital embodiment of past people based on bioarchaeological evidence through digital, immersive avatars. These avatars evoked two Roman-era past people in what was Eboracum, now York (UK). The mixed reality experiment was based around and incorporated a mosaic pavement and fresco located in the Yorkshire Museum, with additional sounds and smells to animate the experience. The creation of the experience was extremely complicated and, although all the elements were 'local' and of a similar time period, required assembling disparate archaeological data into a cohesive, yet ultimately fictive, reconstruction.

The ethics and politics inherent in archaeological representation has been well documented through feminist critiques of popular imagery (e.g. Moser 2009; Perry 2009) and more recent examinations of the perception and depiction of Romans (Polm 2016; Hingley 2019). Ethical dilemmas were compounded by the project's intention to situate living people within avatars of past people. A detailed discussion of the ethics of OTHER EYES is in Morgan et al. (2021), and is further explored within the game as presented here.

A central critique of digital reconstruction and representation in archaeology is the monolithic nature of visuality; usually a single reconstruction is created, and the decisions behind the reconstruction are not obvious to the viewer (Miller and Richards 1995). Additionally, the reception of reconstructions are generally non-agentive; users cannot make changes or interact with the final product in more than a superficial manner (Morgan 2009). As such, within digital visualisations and other creative applications of archaeology, it is recommended to document the decisions that are made during the reconstruction process, also known as paradata (Börjesson et al. 2020). For the OTHER EYES (OE) project, the process of documenting the paradata was both part of the research proposal and part of the principles guiding the research formed by the team members at the outset of the project:

All materials for OE will be made available and archived with the Archaeology Data Service, with paradata attached. This is an attempt to make the project transparent, accountable, long-lived and possibly reproducible. (Original funding application)

The problem with paradata documentation in archaeology is that it is incredibly onerous, tedious, and rarely undertaken. Documentation is a necessity that is often deadening for creative processes. In an attempt to achieve radical transparency for the OTHER EYES project, we transformed the act of paradata documentation for the creation of a virtual reality experience into a game using Twine, a tool for making interactive, non-linear stories. Twine has been a popular tool for easy, experimental game creation, implemented during game jams and by other archaeologists to explore different storytelling and data dissemination strategies. The use of Twine in the context of the OTHER EYES project draws on previous work by feminist theorists (Joyce 2002; Joyce and Tringham 2007) who explored hypertext to better realise multivocality in archaeological interpretations and to highlight the fragmentary nature of archaeological data. The use of Twine for documenting the paradata associated with the OTHER EYES project goes a step further in forefronting the decisions behind archaeological interpretation. It allows users to craft alternative directions for the research, actively creating unrealised, fictive futures drawn from the same archaeological data.

Creating the Twine was a close collaboration between the authors, with Morgan delving through the media, records and data associated with OTHER EYES, and Crowe translating the journey into a branching narrative using Twine's Sugarcube format. Much of the creative writing was performed by Crowe, and different outcomes were collaboratively constructed. Morgan identified each of the main decision points during the project, primarily relating to outreach, the avatar selection, the virtual room construction and mixed reality elements, and the narrative options within the experience. Crowe turned each of these decision points into variables that trigger corresponding text options when encountered. While two users may land on the same page of the game, they might be faced with completely different content depending on their prior decisions. This method helped to keep the number of pages to a minimum and create a more navigable decision tree. However, keeping track of each of these variables and incorporating them into a single page proved to be challenging, particularly when considering that the outcomes may be different if multiple variables are activated at the same time.

The game situates the user as an imaginary adviser to Morgan, the principal investigator (PI) of the OTHER EYES project, who is consulted for all the major decisions in the project. Although the project had very capable and thoughtful advisers with extensive subject expertise, this fictive device aided agentive decision-making from the user. The adviser then guides Morgan through many decisions, including the selection of mixed-reality furniture, different settings for the experience, and the difficult ethical and political decisions that accompany the creation of avatars based on past people, including stakeholder consultation. The decisions that Morgan actually made are highlighted by a yellow thread that runs throughout the Twine, but this does not indicate 'wins' by the user - non-optimal decisions are also included, as well as the impact of the COVID pandemic on the project. The game ends with the commencement of the user-testing phase of the project, but does postulate some outcomes, depending on the user's decisions. After the last decisions are made, the results are collated into one screen, assembling the user's own unique implementation of the OTHER EYES project with the choices that overlap Morgan's actual choices, indicated in yellow.

The Twine game allows the user to step into the role of a project adviser and personally confront the issues faced by Morgan and the OTHER EYES team. The users are therefore also held responsible for how they respond to those issues and are faced with their consequences. 'Gamifying' radical transparency in the construction of archaeological representations allowed an intensely personal, and at times, an uncomfortable and confronting exploration of archaeological knowledge production. Mistakes made during the implementation of projects are regretful and disappointing, although imagining disastrous results for paths not taken was somewhat mollifying. Unfortunately, the paradata is also incomplete, as some of the technological details that would allow the complete replication of the OTHER EYES experience were not included. There is also some obsolescence: some of the game-project participants have changed titles or moved to other positions. The paradata therefore captures a specific moment of time during the research project. The creation of this Twine also informed the forthcoming deposit of the project with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) e.g. illustrative media such as a photo of the mosaic pavement and the draft of the Roman dining room featured within the Twine had to accompany the archive; elements which would not necessarily have otherwise been preserved.

Ultimately the Twine was an intensive investigation of the documentation of archaeological knowledge production and the complexity of creating digital reconstructions. Although this creative intervention was both fun and slightly fraught, it is not believed to be sustainable in this particular format for future visualisation projects. While it is useful for reflection after the conclusion of a project, it does not necessarily provide the user with easy access to the actual paradata. There may be more success with other innovative approaches towards documenting paradata, such as those employed by University of York undergraduate Louise Bedford, who livestreams the creation of her archaeologically-themed cosy video game on TikTok, or the potential use of artificial intelligence to unpick elements of reconstructions through image recognition. Still, 'twining' together both 'true' and fictive narratives forced a productive investigation of the unrealities of archaeological data and reconstructions. As such, we encourage more playful interventions and the creative reimagining of the documentation of archaeological data.

Play the game or download the Twine.