The Cultural Informatics, Data & Computational Cultural Studies Lab [CID-CCS Lab] evolved from the New Media Lab (ENT) that was established in 1999 by the decision of the Assembly of the Department of Communication, Media and Culture in July 2021. According to its regulations, the Lab is active in teaching and research in the fields of Cultural Informatics, Digital Humanities, Digital Social Sciences and Computational Cultural and Visual Studies, and more generally in subjects that correspond to the curriculum and research directions of the Department at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
In the past, as ENT, the Lab offered a programme of courses related to multimedia, web and cultural applications. Since the 2013-2014 academic year, it has collaborated with the directional laboratories in order to enhance the innovative and creative elements of the education offered to students in the fields of media, cultural management, advertising and public relations. From the 2016-2017 academic year, the course “Game and Communication” was introduced in the undergraduate programme of the Department of Communication, Media and Culture.
Since 2010 the involvement with games has been systematic, with the creation of the research group Gamelab. In this context, the Alternate Reality Game “The Trail”, and the hybrid serious game “Planet Dewey” have been created (in collaboration with the Eugenides Foundation Library, the Panteion University Library, and Studio Gameness Monster). The alpha version of the game “(Dis)order” on the topic of anxiety disorders has been completed, with the collaboration of the first-year students of the Department. The games of the Lab have been presented at various conferences, and the analysis of “The Trail” has been included in the first edited volume on Alternate Reality Games. Furthermore, in cooperation with the MSc “Communication, Media and Cultural Management”, diploma theses and a PhD thesis have been completed, while two others are on the way.
The Lab is a member of Coralia’s gi-cluster, which brings together companies and academic and research institutions involved in digital games. It also participates in the Innovate project for research in the field of tourism, creating storytelling and a gamification scenario for the creation of experiential experiences in cultural tourism through the application of mobile devices.
The Director of the Lab is Professor Yannis Skarpelos, and collaborators are Assistant Professor Kostas Karpouzis, and Special Faculty member Dimitris Ntounas, as well as postgraduate students, PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers of the Department.