Category: Events

Watch our Game Developer’s Conference 2024 talk, now on the GDC Vault!

Leaving ‘Arabistan’: A Collaborative Approach to Representing Muslims and the MENA

Watch the talk on the GDC Vault here!
‘In this talk Glaire Anderson, founding leader of the Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections, University of Edinburgh, shares her collaborative project with Ubisoft on the new educational feature created for Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Specifically, she draws on her personal background and experiences, and over a decade of research on using game engines and digital technologies to visualise historical Islamic architecture, landscape, and objects, to explain the importance of collaborative work across games, education, and cultural heritage sector to support public education, inclusion, and to address problematic misconceptions about Muslims and Middle Eastern societies and civilization. Her talk will give attendees a practical example of a successful case study that supports industry focus on fostering diversity of voice, experience, and perspective.’

Arabic Calligraphy Workshop with Hatem Arafa (Online, 15 September – 2 October 2024)

Registration for the Digital Lab’s upcoming online Arabic calligraphy workshop with Hatem Arafa is now open!

  • Duration: 3 weeks, with two 2-hour lessons per week (total of 6 lessons)
  • Schedule: 15 September – End: 2 October. Each 2-hour session will be held Sundays/Wednesdays between 7-9pm BST.
  • Format: Online on Zoom
  • Focus: Teaching Diwani calligraphy, starting from individual letters to forming words and sentences
  • Places are limited

Bio

Hatem Arafa, a calligrapher with a degree from the Traditional Islamic Arts Faculty at FSMV University in Istanbul, is currently pursuing a master’s in Graphic Design. His notable projects include interior calligraphy for the Cary Mosque, USA (2022), commemorative coins for Djibouti (2023) and Qatar’s World Cup (2022), and the logo and interior calligraphy artworks for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage (2023). Website: hatemarafa.com

Summer update: we have merch!

🌟 Want to Support Our Mission? 🌟

📢 We’re happy to announce that you can now represent the Digital Lab and support our mission in style!

Check out our collection on Red Bubble!

🎉By purchasing our merch, designed by our very own Isabella Inskip, you’re supporting our work to make knowledge about global Islamic art and history widely accessible, and helping us drive the change across games and entertainment, GLAM, and the academy that we’re passionate about.


🤩 Whether it’s our tees, cozy hoodies, notebooks, totes, or other gear, each piece is designed with our mission at heart.

If there’s something you want to see, get in touch at info@digitallabivcc.com and we’ll do our best to create it.

Join us in making a difference, and wear your support proudly!

hashtag#SupportOurMission hashtag#DLIVCC hashtag#MerchWithPurpose hashtag#MakeADifference

Don’t need gear right now but want to support the DLIVCC another way? You can tip us here!

❤️ Thank you for believing in our vision. Together, we can make an impact! 🌍

Our new info sheet!

We have a new quick guide to who we are, what we do, who we work with, and WHY we do this work!

You can get it here.

If you know someone who shares our commitments and values and who would be perfect for our global community, please spread the word! The easiest way to get involved is to check out our projects on the website, follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and SoundCloud, and join our free email list to receive updates.

Thanks for supporting our community!

Announcing our World-Designer in Residence in 2024-25!

We are delighted to announce that Maxime Durand, Ubisoft’s World-Design Director and a long-time franchise historian for Assassin’s Creed, will be our Digital Lab World-Designer in Residence in 2024-25!

Thanks to support from Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh, Durand will hold a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship from May 2024 to February 2025, supporting the conception phase for Digital Munya 3, our planned free-to-play educational game and GLAM collaboration. For more information on the Digital Munya project see our website here.

In keeping with our aim to provide students with public impact experience across academic, games, and GLAM sectors, we will be accepting applications for roles on the Digital Munya 3 development team. A separate announcement with details of the roles and information on how to apply will be circulated separately via the Digital Lab community email list.

Questions? Write to us at info@digitallabivcc.com

Game Developer’s Conference 2024, San Francisco is a wrap!

We had an incredible week attending GDC 2024, attending insightful industry talks, meeting old friends and new ones at the events, and most importantly, listening to and learning from our games industry colleagues.

Not only that, we made the news! 🎮 📰

Check out Game Developer’s coverage of our founder Glaire Anderson’s talk on our Assassin’s Creed Mirage collaboration, and why diversity, equity, and inclusion work matters right now.

Let’s keep it going!

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is out and we’re taking a wee breather while we regroup and look for funding to continue our work.

If you’d like to help keep our small but dedicated team going, we invite you to support our work to make Islamic art, architecture, cultural heritage, and histories widely accessible beyond the academy. You can donate here.

Thank you for your support!

Join our Discord community

UPDATED 22 October, 2023

Have you played, or are you planning to play Digital Munya 2 or The Córdoba Journey?

Are you an educator planning to use any of these games in your teaching?

Are you interested in lesson plans and other educator resources?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we’d love to see you in our new Discord space, sharing feedback, comments, and questions, and getting to know others in our growing international community of people who are seriously interested in the intersection of video games/XR+ and Islamic architecture, art, history, and cultural heritage. You’ll need this invite:

https://discord.gg/WaWByVNt

If you’d like to learn more about the Digital Lab, check out our website, read our Newsletter, follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn. If you like what you see and you share our values, aims, and goals, please join our community list to receive our updates and opportunities. You can join through the form on our website.

Thanks for your support and interest!

To receive our newsletters, updates, and opportunities please join our email list below

BBC Scotland coverage for the Assassin’s Creed Mirage collaboration

Our Assassin’s Creed Mirage/History of Baghdad project with Ubisoft has received lots of press in the UK, including a BBC Scotland interview with Glaire Anderson about her role – have a look!

‘Interview with Glaire Anderson, on Working on the New Assassin’s Creed Mirage’. The Nine. Glasgow, Scotland: BBC Scotland, 11 July 2023.

Our Collaboration on Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Ubisoft has now released the official announcement about our work on the new Assassin’s Creed Mirage educational feature!

The new in-game feature is part of a Codex that brings Islamic art, architecture, history, and artefacts from partner museum collections to wide audiences beyond the academy.

You can find all the details on the Ubisoft website here.

Enjoy!

Image: Ubisoft