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The tales of the Tokoloshe: safeguarding intangible cultural heritage using virtual reality

Published: 03 December 2018 Publication History

Abstract

This paper elaborates on the process of digitising Intangible Cultural Heritage, here exemplified by the oral tradition about the African cautionary tales of the Tokoloshe. First the core concepts of Intangible Cultural Heritage and its digitisation efforts are explained. This is followed by an explanation of what the tales of the Tokoloshe entails, and how it was used for constructing a fully playable Virtual Reality environment. The end product is a Virtual Reality installation of the cautionary tale being told around a campfire, from the perspective of an outsider. The player is then possessed by the Tokoloshe and must work with the village witch doctor to remove the bodily possession of the Tokoloshe. A full description of what is needed to play the demo is included in the last section of the paper.

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AfriCHI '18: Proceedings of the Second African Conference for Human Computer Interaction: Thriving Communities
December 2018
373 pages
ISBN:9781450365581
DOI:10.1145/3283458
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 03 December 2018

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Author Tags

  1. Namibia
  2. Tokoloshe
  3. intangible cultural heritage
  4. safeguarding
  5. virtual reality

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  • (2024)Historical Depictions, Archaeological Practices, and the Construct of Cultural Heritage in Commercial Video Games: The Role of These Games in Raising AwarenessPreservation, Digital Technology & Culture10.1515/pdtc-2024-002853:3(113-132)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2024
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