Digital meets Culture

15-16 November 2018, Brussels

REACH at the Fair of European Innovators in Cultural Heritage

The Fair of European Innovators in Cultural Heritage was a key event of 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.

The Fair focused on innovation and innovators, showcased the latest innovations in cultural heritage, discussing how innovation and creativity can benefit both the society and the market; the aim is to invest in people ‘who will make the change’ and support a cultural heritage innovation ecosystem.

The two-days event provided a programme of plenary and breakout sessions, round tables, pitches from innovators, Horizon 2020 projects’ clustering and a B2B corner.
Participants had the opportunity to join the ‘Community of Innovators in Cultural Heritage‘ and its platform to engage with innovation providers, users and investors.

REACH project contributed to the event by the participation of the network coordinator Dr. Antonella Fresa. The 15th of November she participated in the break-out session titled “Shared Management of Cultural Heritage-Intangible heritage and community cohesion” as Dedicated discussant. Introductory presentation of this break out session was made by Dr. Erminia Sciacchitano (Chief Scientific Advisor of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, Directorate General for Education and Culture, European Commission) who mentioned REACH as an example of good practice. In the occasion dissemination materials of REACH were distributed to the participants.

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In Brussels on 15-16 November an important event promoting research & innovation in cultural heritage

The Fair of European Innovators in Cultural Heritage

Held in November 2018 in Brussels, the Fair was a wonderful occasion to see how the EU is promoting research & innovation in cultural heritage, fostering creativity and new connections across countries. The event showcased the latest innovations in cultural heritage, discussing why they are developed and how they can benefit both the society and the market. Participants had the opportunity to join the ‘Community of Innovators in Cultural Heritage‘ and its platform to engage with innovation providers, users and investors.

The event promoted stronger ties between R&I, policies and arts, contributing to an open cultural heritage innovation ecosystem in Europe and beyond.

Essential questions which were driving the event:

Who are the innovators and ‘change-makers’ in the cultural heritage domain?
What do they need in order to work better?
How to promote an open innovation ecosystem on cultural heritage?
Where is innovation produced?

Website: http://www.fairofinnovatorsinculturalheritage.eu/

Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection

Euromed 2018 proceedings are now available

The 21 full papers, 47 project papers, and 29 short papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Digital Heritage, EuroMed 2018, held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in October/November 2018 were carefully reviewed and selected from 537 submissions.

The papers are organized in topical sections on 3D Digitalization, Reconstruction, Modeling, and HBIM; Innovative Technologies in Digital Cultural Heritage; Digital Cultural Heritage –Smart Technologies; The New Era of Museums and Exhibitions; Digital Cultural Heritage Infrastructure; Non Destructive Techniques in Cultural Heritage Conservation; E-Humanities; Reconstructing the Past; Visualization, VR and AR Methods and Applications; Digital Applications for Materials Preservation in Cultural Heritage; and Digital Cultural Heritage Learning and Experiences.

The book is available in two volumes and as an eBook at Springer:

Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection.
7th International Conference, EuroMed 2018, Nicosia, Cyprus, October 29–November 3, 2018, Proceedings.
Editors: Ioannides, M., Fink, E., Brumana, R., Patias, P., Doulamis, A., Martins, J., Wallace, M. (Eds.)

Brussels (Belgium), 13th Febrary 2019

Moving towards Smart Cities: Tackling Urban Challenges Using Technology-Based Solutions

Sustainable development of urban areas is a key challenge. The on-going process of urbanisation is only expected to further increase in the future, raising new environmental and human challenges. Currently, 74% of the European Union’s population lives in cities, as they constitute the main poles of human and economic activity (UN, 2018). The large urban areas are hubs for innovation, education and concentrate 53% of the EU GDP, but remain centres of inequalities and greenhouse gas emissions (Eurostat 2016). However, the development of user-friendly and efficient information and communication technology (ICT) leads the way to the creation of sustainable, resilient and responsive cities.

In 2012, the European Commission introduced the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC), a first step to bring together industry leaders, researchers and the civil society. This umbrella project offers sustainable integrated solutions to address new urban challenges. A digital platform, the “marketplace”, was launched to support smart city projects with up to €1 billion of investment by 2020. Following this year’s EIP-SCC General Assembly, a matchmaking place will be created to put promoters in contact with investments’ partners and to further increase the exchange of best practice. Additionally, since 2016, the “Urban Agenda for the EU” has been gathering stakeholders working on improving the quality of life in urban areas. 12 Partnerships were identified to tackle concrete priority themes. Contributors offer policy recommendations and action plans to improve urban mobility, land use and housing. The integrated approach is also supported by the Horizon 2020 funding scheme for competitiveness and growth.

If the democratization of ICT opens new possibilities, achieving sustainability and efficiency requires nonetheless a holistic problem-solving approach. The technology deficit of a part of the population, the questions of privacy and the growing inequalities in urban areas remain impediments to the radical step change that smart cities represent. A conducive policy framework and a cohesive action from relevant actors are necessary to improve urban life and harness the potential of ICT.

This international symposium offers an invaluable opportunity for key stakeholders to assess the development and implementation of smart cities in the EU and to discuss how citizens will benefit from them. The event will discuss the economic impact of recent digital tools and how to take advantage of them to tackle unemployment and improve services. Furthermore, the event will enable delegates to analyse the importance of data collection to bring sustainability in cities.

Delegates will:

Discuss the concept of Smart City and its practical implementation in the EU
Reflect on the opportunities and challenges posed by the development of ICT
Explore the implementation of sustainable technologies for transportation and housing
Determine ways to modernise urban economy via platforms and Big Data
Develop understanding o the importance of digital tools in energy consumption
Learn how to further include citizens in their city’s decisions making process
Analyse existing smart-city projects and share best practice

To view the brochure, including the full event programme, click here.

A 20% early registration discount off the standard delegate rates (subject to type of organisation and terms and conditions) is offered for bookings received by the 25th January 2019, please book online.

Beijing (China), 13-14 September 2018

REACH project at the CHCD – International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Conservation and Digitization

Organized by THID Tsinghua Heritage Institution for Digitalization , this biannual event had attracted so far foreign experts from over 30 countries and regions promoting a tradition of international collaboration and exchange on the theme of cultural heritage, digital technologies, conservation and digitization.
The theme of 2018 conference was “Re-member: heritage driven economy” and aimed to explore the potential of heritage as a driver for the economic growth.
Many are the contributes collected during the two days meeting: international experts related on their research, projects, lessons, and opportunities, taking advantage of the opportunity to confront and debate on their respectively results on tangible and intangible heritage.
Among the participants, we mentioned Dr He Yan President and Board Member of Tzinghuja Heritage Institute for Digitization and Dr Huan Ying, Deputy Director and Chief of Internation Cooperation Division of Haidian District Science & Technology Commission, Beijing.
The Conference was also joined by Dr Franco Amadei, Director of the Italian Institute of Culture of the Italian Embassy in Beijing and a special contribution was left by Dr Marcin Grabiec, Counsellor of the Delegation of the European Union in China.
Of particular interest was the panel dedicated to the research on cultural heritage in Italy curated by Dr Antonella Fresa from Promoter srl and introduced by two presenters:
Prof Piero Baglioni, Department of Chemistry and CSGI, University of Florence, Italy, whose speech was titled “New methods and materials for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage“ and Dr Mattia Previtali, from Politecnico of Milan, who presented “Some experiences on digitisation of Cultural Built Heritage: HBIM and Open Data Hubs as new paradigms”.

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first meetings: 15th and 19th November, illustrated talks

Get involve in Culture Moves project! Art, dance and touristic engagement

Culture Moves and the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE)of Coventry University have organised a series of events addressed to dance artists and learners interested in finding new way of touristic and community engagement.

The first of these meetings titled “Coffee and Conversation Hour” is planned for next Thursday, 15th November, in Birmingham and aims to make art professionals think about the importance to bring art and dance outdoors for engaging and connecting people.

The second of these illustrated talk will be hold in Coventry on Monday 19th November, headed by Ms Rosemary Lee, artist and choreographer,from C-DaRE Coventry university, and it is dedicated to artists and individuals working with cities, communities and dance.

These initiatives are part of the wider goal of the EU-funded research project Culture Moves, which looks at the intersections between dance, cultural heritage, tourism and education, as well as to the eventual development of an online toolkit aiming to provide dance artists and arts professionals access to dance / cultural content, and enable new forms of touristic engagement and educational resources.
All talks are free and open to the public: organisers welcome dance artists, learners, artists with a site-specific practice and invite all those who are interested in these ideas to join the initiatives and add to the conversation.

More information about “Coffee and Conversation Hour”

More information about “Illustrated Talk with Rosemary Lee’(Choreographer and Senior
Research Fellow – Artist Researcher, C-DaRE) and Panel Discussion’

19th November 2018, Granada, Spain

Strategies and opportunities for cultural heritage in the European Research Area

The seminar is organised in the framework of the European Year of Cultural heritage and aims to:

• Present and analyze the opportunities and benefits offered by the participation to European research programs.
• Give visibility to research and innovation on Cultural Heritage in Andalusia and facilitate articulation among its actors.
• Share the knowledge of the European investment priorities, present and future, as well as the social challenges towards which heritage research should be oriented.
• Anticipate the future of European policies on cultural heritage and discuss how Andalusia and its agents can set themselves in this international framework.
• Promote successful proposals in relation to Cultural Heritage, in the different calls on investigation and innovation.

A special contribute will be given by Dr Zoltan Krosnai, Dg. Research and Innovation of the European Commission through a speech titled ” Balance of calls and patrimonial projects in Horizon 2020 and opportunities for cultural heritage in the new Horizon Europe.”

Besides, Prof. José Mª Martín Civantos, from the University of Granada and Prof. Gabor Sonkoly, from Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, will attend the seminar presenting REACH project and facing the theme of cultural heritage and innovation.

To whom is addressed:

Professionals, research groups, heritage institutions, technology companies, cultural SMEs and All these who wish to explore the possibilities of financing and development offered by the European Research and Innovation programs.

More information about the venue,Organisers and the programme here

8 November, Budapest, Hungary

Heritage Evenings

Yesterday evening at 18,00 was held the “Heritage-Evenings” event, organized by ELTE BTK
Atelier Európai Társadalomtudomány és Historiográfia Tanszék.
During this joint Heritage evening, the representatives of the two H2020 projects, REACH and Open Heritage, introduced and discuss the differences and similarities of the projects and the main issues of creating a bottom-up, democratized cultural heritage.

Look at the poster for more information

Mexico City, 12-14 February 2019

PASIG 2019 conference

The Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) is dedicated to advancing the practice of digital preservation and archiving. It brings together practitioners, industry experts and researchers to share experience in a vendor-neutral forum on how to put preservation and archiving into practice, including:

guidelines, best practice, assessment/audit criteria and standards,
architectures, designs, workflows and deployments,
tools, systems and services,
trends, directions and emerging products/solutions,
case studies, reviews and practical findings, and
comparisons and choices such as community or proprietary, onsite or hosted, customised or standardised solutions.

The community is above all focused on the practical aspects of digital preservation; while it discusses standards, it is not a standards-setting organization. Theory, research and policy discussions are also relevant, to the degree that they have a direct and tangible impact on current digital preservation practice. The PASIG Forum is a place to share practical experiences, successes, pain points, and, increasingly, a forum for fostering coordination and collaboration to enable the most effective use of our resources. To cross-pollinate global ideas and practice, PASIG events typically alternate between eastern and western hemispheres and are held roughly every 9-12 months at volunteer host institutions. The 2019 edition of the PASIG Forum will be held in Mexico City on 12-14 February 2019. Registration is now open! Program: http://pasig2019.colmex.mx/program/

deadline for applications is 25 November

CALL FOR WORKS for QueerTech.io 2019

QueerTech.io 2019 is an annual URL+IRL exhibition of online digital media artworks by queer identifying artists from around the globe, presented by Midsumma Festival and QueerTech.io. This year QueerTech.io are introducing modest artist honorarium for selected works. The work will be shown online and in physical locations (tbc) as part of the Midsumma Festival in Melbourne from 18 January 2019.

The call for works will close Sunday 25 November. If your work is selected, it will be embedded in the QueerTech.io website as part of the online (URL) exhibition.

We are particularly interested in interactive online works and games but also include video art and screen based works. The website is the main game – we are super interested in interactive internet art projects, games and whatever you got. #NSFW is ok but might not get shown in some public contexts.

More info and application: http://queertech.io/2019-cfw/