Digital meets Culture

digital archaeology and virtual reconstruction help preservation of common heritage and the memory and identity of the place and its people

Reviving Palmyra in Multiple Dimensions

Reviving Palmyra in Multiple Dimensions, images, ruins and cultural memory is a book released in February 2018, by Minna Silver, Gabriele Fangi and Ahmet Denker. This is a classic example of digital archaeology and virtual reconstruction and is a beacon for the recording of international cultural heritage. It provides a comprehensive and fascinating study of this World Heritage Site in Syria, lifting it from the ruins.

This book provides a visual reconstruction of Palmyra, a World Heritage Site situated in Syria, which flourished in Greco-Roman times. Palmyra is situated in a desert oasis and served as a vibrant caravan station on the Silk Road connecting the Roman world with the East. It has been called ‘the Queen of the Desert’ and ‘Venice of the Sands’.

In 2015 – 2016 the city was conquered by ISIS who destroyed its monuments and museum, also killing several of its inhabitants. Their aim was to erase the memory and identity of the place, its people and our common heritage. However, through the use of modern technology including photogrammetry, digital imagery and 3D modelling, it has been possible to recreate the documented monuments, thus overcoming to some extent the trauma, cultural destruction and loss.
The book unveils the rediscovery of the site by the West and revives and reconstructs the ancient city through images and history. The reader is taken through the spectacular city and its past by providing the information to follow the roots and development of the site, its monuments and its people through the ages, including rulers such as Queen Zenobia. The combination of visualization and written accounts interlink the environment and its people, the monuments and archaeological small finds by using ancient written sources, old photographs, new imagery, 3D models and 3D printing.

Thus this ancient site and its past is revived in multiple dimensions.
Monuments are visualized as digitally reconstructed ruins or as complete virtual models. This text is therefore the perfect guide for readers who wish to immerse themselves visually in the history of the area and to discover more about the archaeology and its preservation using diverse methods employing modern technology.

REVIVING PALMYRA IN MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS
Images, Ruins and Cultural Memory

Contents: Introducing the memory of the place; Approaching Palmyra from air, space and by land; Revealing cities beneath cities; Individual, families and tribes in inscriptions and images; Palmyra’s destiny between Rome and Persia; The Temple of Bel at the core of Palmyra; The Triumphal Arch and the Grand Colonnade; Sacred and public spaces along the Grand Colonnade; The tombs for the eternal souls of Palmyreans; The Camp of Diocletian, the Christian Basilicas and the Arab Citadel; Appendix – The documentation of the architectural heritage by spherical photogrammetry.

Readership: ideal for all who have an interest in archaeology or the application of modern geomatics and digital techniques in its preservation. Professionals and students in archaeology, heritage and conservation, museums and related areas will find it interesting and stimulating as will anyone in geomatics involved with the application of such techniques to recording heritage.

More info – download the flyer (PDF 121 Kb)

The first project around the world about 1001 artistic projects and Creative Cities of UNESCO

A new way to connect cultures and people: The Nomad Creative Projects



The Nomad Creative Projects is a cultural  international initiative with the aim to develop
cross-cultural links around the world and showcase projects meeting and sharing
experience with foreign cultural actors, thinking on actual topics related to the concept
of culture and the presentation of new trends in the field of arts.
It wants to accelerate, catalyse, connect and communicate civil society initiatives in arts
and culture  rethinking and building the world as an open, inclusive and democratic space. 
The vision of the Nomad Creative Projects is to offer a platform on which artists and
creative cities have the opportunity to present itself in press article, photos and short
videos accessible to all audiences. 
The project , started in July 2017,has been designed by a Séverine Grosjean, a brilliant 
French freelance cultural journalist , that after several international experiences,  decided
to embark and write on new strategies, policies and initiatives aimed at making culture 
and creativity a driving force for sustainable development and urban regeneration.
For further information about the Nomad Creative Projects: 
 www.thenomadcreativeprojects.com/our-team/
facebook (The Nomad Creative Projects)
Instagram (@nomad_creative_projects) 
youtube

The extended deadline for submission of proposals is 15th February 2018

C-DaRE Call for proposals – Digital Echoes 2018

Call for Proposals: Digital Echoes Symposium 2018 / Reflections off the Future

Date: 23 April 2018

As an acoustic phenomenon, an echo is a reflection of sound off a surface. The time it takes to reach this surface and return is proportional to the distance between the sound source and the surface. For Digital Echoes 2018, we invite contributions that reflect off the surfaces of the future. As the question “Where are we now?” was the starting point for the Dance Fields symposium at Roehampton in April 2017, we propose for Digital Echoes 2018 to ask, “Where are we going?” Therefore, for Digital Echoes 2018 we ask you to let your imaginations run free, to dream up how this future echo might appear. It is up to you how far in the future you wish to travel, but just in case you get the impression this call is open for ‘anything’, we provide the following list of keywords: collective choreography, other bodies, touch and stillness, new materialism, immersive experience, what remains, inclusivity, forgetting, dance in museums, annotation practice, dance valuation, rethinking archives, trauma and the somatic, screen bodies, collecting societies, ownership and intangible heritage.

For more information please read the full call (PDF, 542 Kb)

Also, please visit http://bit.ly/2CV9h4j

DES16 Eline Kieft in Emilie Gallier’s silent lecture. Credit: Koko Zin

FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS

Paper presentations are limited to 20 minutes. Proposals for roundtables, demonstrations and other non-standard presentations will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

In your proposal please include the following:

Names of presenters and organisational/institutional affiliation(s)
Technical, space and duration requirements
Biography (max 100 words)
Title and type of submission (panel, poster, performance, etc.)
500 word abstract/description
Bibliography (optional)

The extended deadline for submission of proposals is 15th February 2018.

Proposals should be emailed to researchadmin.ad@coventry.ac.uk

Registration

£10- CovUni Staff & Students

£20 – Unwaged or external student

£30 – Funded or full time employed

Venue details

Institute for Creative Enterprise (ICE Building)

Coventry University

Parkside

Coventry

CV1 2NE

for more information visit http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/areas-of-research/centre-for-dance-research/contact-c-dare/

Organising committee: Prof. Scott deLahunta, Dr. Hetty Blades, Dr. Simon Ellis, Rosa Cisneros and Lily Hayward-Smith

the installation is placed in Cabrini Hospital’s Paediatrics Ward in Malvern, Australia by ENESS media studio

Interactive Wood Wall uses lights and animation to engage with children in hospital

For children especially, hospitals can be anxiety-inducing and overwhelming space. New media studio ENESS aims to change that experience with their installation LUMES, a light-emitting wood piece, the first of which is now on display at Cabrini Hospital in Malvern, Australia.

LUMES is a light-emitting wall system that blends into surrounding architecture and reveals itself in articulate colour forms. Visitors trigger animations of landscapes and animals to the delight of children. Integrated into the building by Australian architects DesignInc, LUMES is designed to engage patients in a positive, calming environment. The interactive material straddles the worlds of art and technology, coming to life as people walk past. According to the designers, animals peek their heads out of grass that grows with movement, animated raindrops fall on passers-by, rockets launch and animated runners follow human movements—all in bright colors displayed on natural materials.

“Our goal was to maximize the space with interactive experiences that children could intuitively use,” said Andrea Rindt, Nurse Director for Women and Children at Cabrini Hospital.

More info: http://lumes.net/about2/, http://eness.com/

Digital Mapping Artists transform the Montreal Cathedral into an immersive experience to merge art, design, spirituality and high-technology in a creative dialogue

AURA, a luminous experience in the heart of Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica

Aura is an immersive sound, light and video projection-mapping experience, staging in Montreal’s landmark Notre-Dame Basilica. The viewer is absorbed in a spectacle in which the Basilica’s grandiose architecture is enriched with a layer of augmented reality and spatialized orchestral scoring. The project uses highly complex projection-mapping technology to highlight the intricacy and beauty of the Basilica’s structure so that its interior is bathed in breathtaking animated projections.

The projection mapping system deployed for realizing Aura had to be fully integrated with the space: for this reason the creative team performed a full 3D scan of the cathedral to be used as a digital canvas for the projections’ creative content. This sophisticated custom-built mapping system perfectly matches the Basilica’s structure, facilitating the seamless integration of video projections, merged with the location’s original colours so that Aura’s chromatic palette enriches the Basilica’s existing details to produce a transformative visual experience.

Aura was born from collaboration between the Moment Factory team and the Fabrique de la Paroisse Notre-Dame, managers of the Basilica. Since the project’s conception in 2015, over 100 people have worked in close collaboration to produce it. Achieving this vision required a year of musical composition and recording, four intense months of visual content production, 90 days of installation and a month of content integration and testing.

More about Moment Factory

Early Bird deadline: Friday February 2nd 2018 / Final deadline: Monday June 25th 2018

Edinburgh Short Film Festival Submissions Now Open for 2018

Screening the best in International contemporary short cinema at venues across the Scottish capital in Autumn and curating programmes for other festivals across the UK & Internationally.

This year, we’re also excited to be curating film programmes from submissions for our 2018 partners:

DC Shorts – The US East Coast’s largest short film event
Mecal – the Barcelona International Short Film Festival
Sardinia Film Festival
Fastnet Film Festival
Firenze FilmCorti
Hidden Door

and many others!

Max Length 25 minutes, international films welcomed, all genres eligible.

Early Bird deadline (£13): Friday February 2nd 2018

Final deadline: Monday June 25th 2018

http://www.edinburghshortfilmfestival.com/call-for-entries/

Brussels (Belgium), 14th March 2018

Achieving a Business-friendly Environment in the EU: Revitalising the European Agenda on SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the EU’s economy. They represent 99.8% of all companies operating in the non-financial business sector, accounting for 67% of total employment and 57% of added value. Almost all of these SMEs are micro enterprises, employing less of 10 people. Notwithstanding the necessary actions required by national governments, the EU has a crucial role in creating a supportive environment for businesses across Europe.

The Small Business Act (SBA) has been, since 2008, the overarching framework for the EU policy on SMEs. For the period 2014-2020, the SBA is implemented through the EU Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (the COSME programme), provided with planned budget of €2.3 billion. By 2018 at the latest, the European Commission is expected to carry out a mid-term evaluation of COSME. To ensure proper implementation of EU programmes and other policy measures in favour of enterprises within the Single Market, a clear common definition of SME would be required, so to avoid any distortions of competition deriving from legal uncertainty. In this regard, in the summer of 2017, the Commission launched the Inception Impact Assessment for the revision of the current EU SME definition, provided in Recommendation 2003/361/EC.

To enhance competitiveness and further increase prosperity, it is necessary to stimulate the creation of new businesses and revitalize the culture of entrepreneurship, fostering innovation and promoting the circulation of new ideas. Ensuring the adoption of well-designed regulatory instruments and the diffusion of key technologies is equally essential in pursuing the same purpose. One of the most important barriers that SMEs face is their difficulty in accessing finance. The creation of more integrated capital markets in Europe could help them mobilise private capital, unlocking diversified funding opportunities at lower costs. In this regard, the Capital Markets Union – which constitutes an integral part of the Investment Plan for Europe, the so-called Juncker plan – will remove obstacles to cross-border investment and create a strong system complementing banks as sources of financing.

This symposium will offer an opportunity to analyse the latest updates related to the EU policy on SMEs and entrepreneurship. It will explore its potential as a cross-sectoral issue, considering how complementary actions in other policy areas can have multiplier effects in strengthening its implementation. The conference will support the exchange of ideas and best practice, encouraging delegates to engage in a challenging debate with business representatives and policy makers at EU level.

Delegates will:

Examine the current European framework in support of SMEs and its upcoming developments
Assess the benefits of targeted pro-entrepreneurship education programmes
Explore ways to promote female and youth entrepreneurship
Learn about alternatives to improve SMEs’ access to finance
Discuss solutions to reduce the administrative burden and compliance costs for SMEs
Take part in interactive discussions on how to improve SMEs’ access to the Digital Single Market
Liaise with experts and relevant stakeholders at national and international level

View the brochure, including the full event programme: http://www.publicpolicyexchange.co.uk/media/events/flyers/IC14-PPE2_flyer.pdf

Registration: https://www.publicpolicyexchange.co.uk/events/IC14-PPE2

Historical and traditional irrigation systems as tools for the promotion of preservation of rural communities heritage.

Learning by the past: MEMOLA animation video

Memola project studies the formation process of historical landscapes in relation to the use of natural resources, especially soil and water, in order to define strategies for the conservation, diffusion and connection between cultural heritage and environment.
The project produced two interesting animation videos illustrating the importance of shared water management and the way how it contributes to solve conflicts, promote and preserve culture identities of rural communities.

An amazing expression of participatory approaches to culture where art is used to transform the urban environment into a happier and healthier place

Stuart Semple tranforms Denver in a HAPPY CITY

“We live in a time where public space is threatened, and people seem to be more atomized and isolated than ever. I’ve always had this radical idea that could be used to bring people together … “
These are the main reasons that inspired the celebrated British artist Stuart Semple to design for May 2018 a radical intervention in the urban context of the city of Denver, with the aim “to incite widespread happiness by breaking down social barriers, increasing connection among strangers and fostering wellbeing.”
Light installations, monumental paintings, interactive graphic works and large scale public sculptures will decorate strategic areas of the city, such as Union Station, the main and busiest rail station of the city, tranformed into a Happy Station, that gives playfulness and pleasure to everyday work, or the ‘Coloring Café’ an open space where everybody can freely paint, making their own contribution to Happy City.
Many of these huge, public works, will be permanently left as monuments to happiness.
Happy City is an initiative of the Denver Theater District, curated by NINE dot ARTS and supported by many other artistic and cultural institutions of the city of Denver.

For further information about:

the artist: www.stuartsemple.com

Denver Theatre District: www.denvertheatredistrict.com

NINE dot ARTS: www.ninedotarts.com

To read more on Happy City, visit https://fadmagazine.com/2017/12/20/234014/

Fort Worth (Texas, US), 3-6 June 2018

ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries / JCDL 2018

From Data to Wisdom: Resilient Integration across Societies, Disciplines, and Systems.

The ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries in 2018 (JCDL 2018) will be held in conjunction with UNT Open Access Symposium 2018 on June 3 – 6, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas, the rustic and artistic threshold into the American West. It will be hosted by three units of the University of North Texas (UNT) — the College of Information, the UNT Health Science Center, and the UNT Libraries. Its co-organizer includes the School of Information Management at Wuhan University.

A call for participation is currenly open with deadlines on Jan. 15, 2018 (Tutorial and workshop proposal submissions; Full paper and short paper submissions) and Jan. 29, 2018 (Panel, poster and demonstration submissions).

JCDL welcomes interesting submissions ranging across theories, systems, services, and applications. We invite those managing, operating, developing, curating, evaluating, or utilizing digital libraries broadly defined, covering academic or public institutions, including archives, museums, and social networks. We seek involvement of those in iSchools, as well as working in computer or information or social sciences and technologies. Multiple tracks and sessions will ensure tailoring to researchers, practitioners, and diverse communities including data science/analytics, data curation/stewardship, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, hypertext (and Web/network science), multimedia, publishing, preservation, digital humanities, machine learning/AI, heritage/culture, health/medicine, policy, law, and privacy/intellectual property.

Website: https://2018.jcdl.org/