Digital meets Culture

It is a Virtual Reality Club, a pavilion developed for The Wrong, digital art biennale

join Mutant Club, a multisensory experience to be explored

This application was presented at The Wrong, the largest and most comprehensive biennale celebrating digital art today. A global event aiming to display digital culture, open to participation, and spreading its content through online pavilions: virtual curated spaces in any online accessible media where selected artworks are exhibited.

Mutant Club proposes an immersive and multisensory experience based on Virtual Reality, interactions, and sounds, curated by Enrique Salmoiraghi.

Featured artists
Federico Marino / Miguelangelo Rosario / Simon Falk / Alexander Wurts / Glitch_Ω / Emidio Bruno / Noke Yuitza / Luisa de la Rosa / Pure Honey / Zeat / P.C.T / Gustavo Fajardo / Frenetik Void / Rollercoasterwater / Diuhn / Ville Kallio / Daniel Vasconcelos / Dennis Richter / Jake Ball.

Deep & synthetic sounds are seeping through the walls of this floating UFO, giving the art revelers, a hint of what’s hidden on the inner side. But within these organic shapes, a different kind of experience awaits: a club for all those mutants living on the Inter-net-space where diversity reigns and the limits of consciousness are constantly being pushed.
To celebrate integration, the club admits every form of posthuman life. The code is to follow its own personal style and be open to meeting a variety of humanoids, avatars, aliens and any kind of digital lifeform who are welcome to party in this cyber happening.
This pavilion proposes a VR immersive and multisensory experience on the craziest virtual dancefloor. An opportunity to dance among living artworks and enjoy hot music.
Come and join the party! www.mutantclub.net

deadline for submissions: 15th March 2018

Call for papers: Archaeology and Architecture in Europeana

The call for papers is open for a one-day workshop on Archaeology and Architecture in Europeana, organised by CARARE and hosted by the University of Lund, to be held in Lund on the 20th June 2018.

The physical remains of Europe’s rich heritage are all around us. From the historic houses we live and work in, the places we worship, places we visit to explore tombs, earthworks, architectural ruins or monuments to industries past, the museums we visit, the shape of our landscape and the ground beneath our feet. Digital technologies are widely used to capture the heritage for conservation and research, for analysis, to support learning and tourism, and for enjoyment.

This workshop will explore how digital content for the archaeological and architectural heritage can be made available to users of Europeana, experiences and best practices in providing content, and potential re-uses of the content for education, tourism and researchers.

Topics of interest include:

Case studies of archaeology and architecture content in Europeana
Approaches to publishing 3D models online for users on Europeana
Linking contextual and historical information to digital resources for archaeology and architecture
Linked data for archaeology and architecture
Uses of archaeology and architecture datasets for education, cultural tourism, creative industries, etc.

We invite proposals for oral presentations and demos.

Important dates

15 March 2018 – Call for contributions closes

20 June 2018 – Workshop

Submit an abstract

Send the abstract for your presentation or demo to this email address events@carare.eu, with your name and affiliation. The abstract should be no longer than 300 words.

Register

Please register for “Archaeology and Architecture in Europeana” on our Eventbrite registration page

Win up to €20,000 for the best ideas reusing Europeana's openly licensed content for innovative learning

Europeana #edTech Challenge

The Europeana #edTech Challenge is a funding opportunity for entrepreneurs, developers, designers and educators who explore digital opportunities for education and training.

Do you have an exciting project in the intersection of culture, education and technology? We’re offering €20,000 for the best products, services or businesses that bring together cultural heritage and educational technology. Apply for the challenge before 28 February and show how to use cultural content to inspire learners of all ages.

We invite applications from individuals or teams of creatives interested in designing fantastic edTech projects using Europeana’s openly licensed content. Eligible proposals include but are not limited to digital applications, games, web services, learning software and digital learning materials (for instance, MOOCs). We accept proposals at various stages of maturity, including existing applications and educational platforms that would like to further develop their business potential.

Discover more about application criteria and terms & conditions: https://pro.europeana.eu/post/europeana-edtech-challenge

Rotterdam (The Netherlands), 15-16 May 2018

EuropeanaTech Conference 2018

SAVE THE DATE – The third international EuropeanaTech conference took place on the “ss Rotterdam” in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, May 15-16 as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

EuropeanaTech 2018 brought together an international network of technical and R&D specialists from memory organisations, research institutions and creative industries to share innovative progress and forecast the technical future of Europeana and digital cultural heritage.

It offered the opportunity to work with and learn from leading specialists, practitioners and researchers from across the world, to benefit from the mutual exchange of ideas, technology and code and as an event it leads the way in how technologies bring Europe’s cultural heritage closer to people

https://pro.europeana.eu/event/europeanatech-conference-2018

EuropeanaTech is about the practical application of research concepts and the latest technologies to digital libraries. For this edition of EuropeanaTech, we concentrated on the three D’s: Data, Discovery and Delivery. Intertwined are the concepts of participation, linked and big data; language and tools. Across all the subjects we are looking for the inclusion of rigorous evaluations of the outcomes. The conference was a mix of invited speakers and successful presentations of both gorgeous successes and glorious failures.

List of Topics

DATA

User generated content and metadata: from crowdsourcing of descriptive data and transcription projects to Wikidata and structured data on the Commons to how to combine institutional and user generated metadata. We are looking for what has worked, or what hasn’t and can be done better.
Enhancing the results of digitisation: various applications connect the act of digitisation with required data processes for the use of the data. What are the latest techniques, have they been applied at scale, do they work in the in the more challenging audio-visual areas? We are interested in everything from 3D capture, OCR, sound/video labelling, named entity recognition and feature detection, to machine or deep learning to help classify and categorise the digitised data.
Decentralisation vs Centralisation: We know that aggregation works as a process to bring together disparate data, standardised, normalise it and make it available to other parties, but we also know that this is labour intensive, very hierarchical, and does not distribute knowledge and expertise. On the other hand more decentralised ways of working have yet to be really proven in practice. Presentations that give the latest thinking on how we can best enable access to cultural heritage data and reduce friction costs are welcome, particularly with evaluation on the relative strengths and weaknesses.
Multilingualism: Google has more or less cracked full text translation of mainstream languages, but we are still struggling with niche languages and metadata. Presentations that evaluate the current thinking or give insights into the latest work in the area would fit well in this section of the creation and use of multilingual data in Cultural Heritage.

DISCOVERY

User Interaction: Search is still the dominant means of gaining access to the wealth of cultural heritage data now online, but does it represent that wealth? Search is ungenerous: it withholds information, and demands a query, what are the alternatives? Papers on generous interfaces and frictionless design are sought to shed new light on how Cultural Heritage can show itself more deeply. Evaluating the benefits and weaknesses to the user in the process.
Artificial Intelligence: For this subject topics ranging from machine learning to neural network-based approaches to Cultural Heritage are welcome. This includes applications of AI from image feature recognition to natural language processing, and from building search interfaces on features/colour similarity between images and discovery to the use of human metadata and computer vision. We would also be interested in the audio and moving image equivalents. Anything dealing with the combination of metadata tags, image similarity and machine learning based on user input would be very relevant as would Artificial Intelligence technology for content curation.

DELIVERY

Digital Innovation: The corporate culture of our memory institutions, set up to preserve and conserve our heritage and the organisation of digital innovation are not a marriage made in heaven. The Labs/Skunkworks model is increasingly seen at best as an interim stage and at worst as a dead end for organising innovation. So how should GLAMs go about organising for digital innovation? How can governments and/or funders best support digital transformation of the GLAM-sector?
Evaluation techniques: Evaluation should be part of everything we do in the publicly funded space of most of cultural heritage, but the how is struggling to gain a common language, one that we can apply so funders get a picture of the project within its broader context. Evaluation has been requested to be part of all papers submitted but the latest in techniques and agreement on a framework for the sector would constitute useful insights.
Open source community: What is the health and standing of the open source community within the cultural heritage sector? Does it thrive or is it a nice idea that is not a reality? How can projects with a limited lifespan create and sustain products for the sector at large while developing and engaging a thriving community around them? From digitisation to search engine development should there be more emphasis on the need for vibrant open source communities and more resources to realizing them? Papers on barriers and successes are requested.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS - deadline 31st January

workshop: The politics of metadata in participatory approaches: Opportunities, practices, and conflicts (DHN 2018)

Second call for proposals / Workshop at the conference Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 7 March 2018 at the University of Helsinki

This workshop seeks to expand critical perspectives on metadata in relation to public cultural heritage image collections online.
In our image-saturated time, the definition of therticipatory online practices such as crowdsourcing enable cultural heritage institutions to accelerate the development of digi also be seen as platforms for audience engagement, creating a deep connection to cultural heritage through online collaboration. Furthermore, open data and enhanced standards enabling interoperability might support new forms of collaboration between institutions, researchers, and the general public.
However, these participatory open science practices create new challenges due to the character of the networked publics involved and the established structures between and within institutions, but also new opportunities and practices when it comes to understanding and defining our shared images. Therefore, critical perspectives on metadata in relation to photographic collections online are vital. This calls for an interdisciplinary approach in the intersection between computer science, image studies, and cultural studies.

For this workshop, therefore, we invite participants to look more closely at different types of participatory practices online in relation to the cultural heritage domain, and at different levels of interaction. Possible sites of analysis could be the interaction between participants, the participation in the work by different stakeholders, the potentially privileged levels of interaction with the metadata, or tensions in the agency of the participants in relation to the task.
This half-day workshop explores the topics in mini presentations and brainstorming sessions, and will result in a research agenda for addressing these questions.

The position-paper should be 2-4 pages and using the Springer LNCS templates.
Send submissions and inquiries to the following email address:
politics-of-metadata@googlegroups.com

Deadline is Wednesday, January 31, 2018.

For more information visit the website: http://politicsofmetadata.blogs.dsv.su.se/

a White Paper aiming at fostering conversations in the audiovisual archiving and cultural heritage communities about the challenges they face

Towards a New Audiovisual Think Tank for Audiovisual Archivists and Cultural Heritage Professionals

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision has released its new White Paper, Towards a New Audiovisual Think Tank for Audiovisual Archivists and Cultural Heritage Professionals. The White Paper, the first effort from a new ‘AV Think Tank’ on audiovisual archiving initiated by Sound and Vision, aims to facilitate stakeholders active in the preservation of audiovisual heritage to identify their strategic priorities over the coming decade. The paper also puts forward 10 recommendations for collective action to address these priorities.

Written by Peter B. Kaufman of Intelligent Television and MIT, the White Paper is the result of months of open conversation with leading experts in the field representing various positions, archives, and cultural heritage institutions. The White Paper was publicly presented at the FIAT/IFTA 2017 World Conference in October in Mexico City, and input from many of the delegates was incorporated.

Johan Oomen, head of R&D at Sound and Vision, stated, “This White Paper is one of the first steps that we are taking to establish a new international thought leadership group – the AV Think Tank – with experts from around the globe. Through the AV Think Tank, we aim to lay the groundwork for an AV archiving sector that enables more long-term use of its assets, more learning, and more educational activity.”

The White Paper is meant to start a conversation with the audiovisual archiving and cultural heritage communities and within the AV Think Tank itself. It addresses the current context of the work that audiovisual archivists and cultural heritage professionals do and many of the challenges they face. It puts forth ten recommendations as strategic priorities for the coming ten years around which action, research and development, and resources could be organised. Each recommendation is accompanied by a timeline of first collective actions to take.

The AV Think Tank is committed to following up on these recommendations through a series of activities. The AV Think Tank is creating task forces and working groups focused on these issues. These groups will conduct further research and connect with other relevant stakeholder groups; lay the groundwork for policy and practice recommendations through the creation of handbooks, strategy papers, and other publications; and develop actions plans that connect directly to the interests of AV archivists and cultural heritage professionals. Through these activities, this group of international experts, in consultation with the wider community, is working to articulate an international research and action agenda for our shared strategic priorities for the next ten years.

The White Paper can downloaded directly as PDF here. To join the conversation about our shared strategic priorities, follow and comment on the White Paper on Medium here.

The AV Think Tank invites comment from and conversation with anyone interested in the present and future of our shared moving image cultural heritage.

To contact the AV Think Tank, please email: avthinktank@beeldengeluid.nl

Grand prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts

STARTS Prize 2018 Open Call – deadline 2nd March 2018

Appointed by the European Commission, Ars Electronica, BOZAR and Waag Society are launching a prize to select the most pioneering collaborations and results in the field of creativity and innovation at the crossings of science and technology with the arts. This follows the launch of a new activity in the European Commission named STARTS: Innovation at the nexus of Science, Technology, and the ARTS.

Science, Technology and Arts (=STARTS) form a nexus with an extraordinarily high potential for creative innovation. And such innovation is considered to be precisely what’s called for if we’re to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. The role of artists thus is no longer seen to be just about propagating scientific and technological knowledge and skills among the general public but much more as a kind of catalyst that can inspire and trigger innovative processes. The artistic practice of creative exploration and experimental appropriation of new technologies has a wide reaching potential to contribute to the development of new products and new economic, social and business models. Accordingly, the STARTS Prize focuses on artistic works that influence or change the way we look at technology, and on innovative forms of collaboration between the ICT sector and the world of art and culture.

Two prizes, each with €20,000 prize money, are offered to honor innovative projects at the intersection of science, technology and the arts: one for artistic exploration, and thus projects with the potential to influence or change the way technology is deployed, developed or perceived, and one for innovative collaboration between industry/technology and art/culture in ways that open up new paths for innovation.

Grand Prize—Artistic Exploration

Awarded for artistic exploration and art works where appropriation by the arts has a strong potential to influence or alter the use, deployment or perception of technology.

Grand Prize—Innovative Collaboration

Awarded for innovative collaboration between industry or technology and the arts that opens new pathways for innovation.

Submission phase ends on March 2, 2018!

More information: https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/

DIGITIZE: RESEARCH – RECORD - REACTIVATE - RECONSTRUCT

Visual Heritage 2018, Vienna, Austria – Call for SESSIONS (Deadline, January 20, 2018)

The next edition of CHNT (Cultural Heritage and New Technologies – www.chnt.at) will be organized in cooperation with the EG GCH (Eurographics Symposium and Graphics Cultural Heritage) and other partners (will be announced soon) in the City Hall of Vienna Austria. viThe aim of this federated event is again to bring different communities in the same venue, to share experiences and discuss methodologies concerning digital visual media and their use in the context of heritage applications, to document digitally on at-risk archaeological sites, historical buildings, museums… and their texts, books, paints, pictures, objects …all records of through collecting original image collection’s source.

The 2018 edition will be a special event, since 2018 has been declared by the European Commission the “European Year of Cultural Heritage”. The event will also take place during the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, at 2nd half of 2018.

Therefore, Visual Heritage 2018 will be an ideal context for discussing European policies on digital heritage and digital humanities.

CALL for SESSIONS, PANELS, ROUND TABLES, WORKSHOPS and ADVANCED ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRAININGS

We invite everybody to send us your proposals to organize a session, panel, workshop, round table, tutorial or advanced archaeological training.

Content of the proposal

Title of the session, ….
Name of chairs / organizer (max. 2)
Description of the planned session,… (200 – 300 words)
Target group
Specifics
Deadline: January 20, 2018
Notification: February 1, 2018

Please send your proposal to – kongrarchae@stadtarchaeologie.at

Open call for improving the capacity of H2020 projects in the development of policy recommendations

Policy Workshop “Coordinating Policy Recommendations for Durable Action”

How to produce a policy recommendation?
How can you effectively address European Commission representatives? Such kind of questions will be the main subject of this interesting initiative that will take place in Brussels, the 14th of February. The workshop is an initiative of two H2020 funding projects: COURAGE and DANDELION; it aims to coordinate policy recommendations of European projects in the field of cultural heritage by raising the most pressing issues in the field and finding solutions together with policy makers from the European Commission and European think tanks.
Read more about the workshop and how to join it at:
http://www.dandelion-europe.eu/en/events/dandelion-events/policy-workshop-coordinating-policy-recommendations-for-durable-action.html
For farther information about
H 2020 COURAGE project: http://cultural-opposition.eu/#project-overview
H 2020 DANDELION Project: http://www.dandelion-europe.eu/en/about/dandelions-approach1/dandelions-approach.html

powered by Google Maps, it is a virtual tour of the entire museum that allows to fully immerse in the location and visualize the artpieces

Take a Virtual Tour of The Uffizi Gallery in Florence

from Openculture.com.

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence doesn’t particularly need an introduction, seeing that it’s one of the most widely-visited museums in Italy, the home of great artistic works from the Renaissance. If you pay the Uffizi a visit, you can see Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Dürer’s Adoration of the Magi, Caravaggio’s Bacchus, Michelangelo’s The Holy Family, and Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as a Young Man.

Or you could do the same by dialing up the Uffizi’s Virtual Tour available here. It’s essentially a Google Street View tour of the entire museum. It’s admittedly a little tedious. But if you have a lot of time and a handy floor plan, you can still immerse yourself in a collection that’s been enchanting visitors since the 18th century.