Critical making is a mode of engagement that can challenge and change interpretation and presentation of heritage. Matt Ratto defines critical making as a way to “use material forms of engagement with technologies to supplement and extend critical reflection...to reconnect our lived experiences with technologies to social and conceptual critique” (Ratto 2011:253). Connected with the concept of play as a mode of experience in cultural heritage, critical making can decenter interpretive authority and bring multiple stakeholders together to experiment creatively with heritage. In this seminar I present projects informed by anthropology, visual and media studies, and digital heritage that reveal the productive connections between theory-driven research and hands-on making. These include the presentation of archaeological sites in the popular virtual worlds of Minecraft and Second Life, explorations of light writing and alternate visualization techniques and the creation of augmented reality through aural interpretive landscapes.