Digital meets Culture

exploring and presenting the expanded moving image, image – in the broadest sense, including video, audio-visual performance, light art, sound art, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and multi-media formats in between – in public space.

Screen City Biennial 2017 highlights

Screen City is a biennal event dedicated to presenting the moving image in public space, and its program combines installations, screenings, art walks, an online exhibition and audio-visual program, talks and panels. It explores the relation between the moving image, sound and architecture and presents artistic formats that seek to expand the borders of cinematic experience. The Biennial is organized in Stavanger, Norway, in close collaboration with local and international art institutions and organizations. The Biennial presents a new platform that works to explore uses of the moving image in contemporary artistic practice. For the 2017 Biennial edition titled Migrating Stories, Stavanger harbor – its architectonic position in the landscape and its surroundings – was an important focus for production and presentations of the art. The Biennial presented moving image artworks from a broad range of international artists in dialogue and conjunction with the urban sphere and context in the city of Stavanger.

More photos, documentation and video:

http://2017.screencitybiennial.org/documentation/

Screen City is produced by Art Republic – Norway. Art Republic is a platform dedicated to digital art & public space. Inspired by the encounters between art and new technology, and the contemporary expression constantly being born through this meeting point. Art Republic consults, curates and produce projects that seek new approaches towards expanded cinematic experiences. Art Republic empowers research & projects dedicated to the creation of new exhibition & distribution models for the moving image, and enforcing the line of art-tech entrepreneurship.

In these artworks, the viewer enters into the added reality created by the painter, that empowers the static picture with realistic dynamic details.

Augmented Reality vs. classical painting: the works of Dražen Turković

Dražen Turković is a painter who likes to explore new technical possibilities in contemporary art, and in facts his most recent and innovative works start from “classical” painting on acrylic. The paintings are characterized with intense colors and decorated abstract lines with a striving on a linear composition, framed by clear and sharp paint brushes, either in a horizontal or vertical direction.

These artworks “function” either independently as they are, or as the basis for experimenting with digital technology, and are thus empowered with Augmented Reality, to be discovered by the viewer using “special weapons” in his/her hands: a smartphone with a dedicated app. Through the Aurasma application, the user enters into an active view of the image, immersed in the added reality created by the painter, that empowers the static picture with realistic dynamic details.

Dražen has been been researching the possibilities of integration of IT technology and fine arts for some years, experiencing and revealing classic painting techniques through new means of expression. In this research there is also an innovative aspect that is connected to the concept of originals and duplicates. In facts, each copy of Dražen’s work is as authentic as compared to the original painting, because the application works in the same way either with the original work or with its copy. Thus, AR makes the artwork accessible to everyone in its full experience, but indeed the original painting always remains unique in the classical sense of being a picture on the wall. Also, despite duplicates of the painting can be infinite, the artwork’s life is linked to the short-term technology currently available in the market, which would possibly be replaced soon with more advanced tools and developments.

Dražen Turković was born in Pribanjci (Hr) in 1950. He graduated in Ljubljana, after which he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan (Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera – Milan) and graduated in 1975. He graduated in painting, graphic design, digital graphics and design. He has been grouped and independently exhibited since 1974 at home and abroad. He has been awarded numerous awards at international exhibitions. He lives and works in Pula.

Website: www.drazenturkovic.wordpress.com

digital tour technology helps audiences with accessibility needs understand the spaces and routes in advance, before stepping inside the building

Auckland Live launches the first Accessibility Virtual Tour of the city’s Town Hall

Auckland Live is a part of Regional Facilities Auckland, committed to promoting the arts, and supporting inclusiveness and access to the arts for all.

In early December 2017, Auckland Live launched the first Accessibility Virtual Tour for the Town Hall– the first of a New Zealand venue to assist disabled and mobility-impaired concertgoers. This online tour is an intuitive vehicle for audiences with accessibility needs to become familiar with the historic venue before stepping inside.

Built around 3-D images of the Town Hall’s Baroque-style interiors, the tour begins in the venue’s foyer, where virtual visitors can choose to navigate wheelchair and mobility-impaired pathways taking them to seating in the Great Hall and Chamber Concert. Step counts along the way, coupled with elevator access, floor plans and pathways to the box office, public toilets and the bar offer an enhanced and fulsome experience of the Auckland Council A and Category 1 Heritage NZ listed building.

User-centric and innovative, AVT is the culmination of hours of research and analysis by Auckland Live and virtual tour developers Property3D, as well as consultation and testing with the disabled community.

[Show as slideshow]

“By coupling the latest in digital tour technology with a 106-year-old building we’ve opened up the doors of the Town Hall wider than ever before. The enhanced accessibility allows more Aucklanders, particularly those with disability issues and the elderly, to enjoy the iconic Town Hall as well as experience the magic and memories created by the live arts experience. We believe this is only the first step to the future of more accessibility and inclusive”, said Auckland Live director, Robbie Macrae.

Accessibility Virtual Tours will be launched online in 2018 for The Civic, Aotea Centre and Bruce Mason Centre in Auckland.

The Town Hall tour can be taken here: https://goo.gl/3pNNqX
Website: aucklandlive.co.nz

the consultation is open until 14th January: go have your say about how can digital culture enrich your life and work

Developing Europe’s Digital Platform for cultural heritage: public consultation on Europeana opens

How can digital culture enrich your daily life and work? Do you share, access or use cultural heritage materials online? Today, the Commission launches a public consultation to hear the opinions from citizens and organisations with a personal or professional interest in digital culture available online.

The public consultation will be open in all EU languages until 14 January 2018, go have your say here.

The Commission wants to know how citizens, professionals and organisations use Europeana, the European online platform for culture heritage that is visited approximately 700,000 times per month. The platform gives access to over 53 million items including image, text, sound, video and 3D material from the collections of over 3,700 libraries, archives, museums, galleries and audio-visual collections across Europe. The platform can be used by teachers, artists, data professionals in cultural institutions and creative fields but also everyone looking for information on culture.

The public consultation will help to identify through an independent evaluation how Europeana is currently used and how this can be improved and made more accessible for everyone. For example, the platform provides content also for re-use in the education, research or creative sectors of which many people are not yet aware. The results of the consultation will contribute to further develop Europeana’s offers and increase its visibility and use for the European culture heritage online. Europeana will also be closely associated to the European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018.

More about the consultation: https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-europeana-europes-digital-platform-cultural-heritage_en

A digital project by Europeana invites museums and people to show the contribution migration makes to culture for European Year of Cultural Heritage

Europeana Migration, to show that culture is the product of multicultural influences down the centuries

2018 will be the European Year of Cultural Heritage when citizens across Europe are invited to explore what it offers in all its forms. Europeana, the digital face of Europe’s cultural heritage, partners the Year and will supply the cross-border and cross-generational element to activities.

The Year will spotlight cultural heritage as a part of people’s everyday lives, ‘where the past meets the future’; in 2018 Europeana will focus on migration to show that culture is the product of multicultural influences down the centuries – from the food people cook and eat, to the music they listen and dance, and even the clothes they wear.

Europeana invites people young and old to be part of its Europe-wide project to build an online collection dedicated to migration.

Throughout the Year people will be able to share and upload their family stories and memorabilia online to Europeana Migration Collection– building it together with migration museums across Europe.
All of the content on the site will relate to migration and, from photos to films and letters to artworks, it will tell the stories of the people who have journeyed to, from and across Europe, uncovering the contribution of migration to our cultural heritage.
The items will be an important online testament to Europe’s rich history of migration, freely available for anyone to discover and use for education, research, inspiration and pleasure.

Participation activity begins in March 2018 and as the Collection builds throughout the Year people will be encouraged take part

– by exploring their cultural heritage, sharing what they discover, through exhibitions and galleries

– via social media with the hashtags #EuropeanaMigration and #EuropeforCulture

– and also through working with schools and retirement homes.

Elisabeth Niggemann, Chair of the Europeana Foundation and General Director of the German National Library, explains: ‘Europe’s cultural heritage has shaped the collective memory and identity of European citizens through the centuries. From folklore and traditions to visual arts and fashion, our diversity is an invaluable resource that can stimulate connections between people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures. Europeana and Europe’s citizens will help tell this story as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage.’

No time to wait – Conference on Open Source Software in (Digital) Archives

Open Source Tools for Validation in the Digital Archive Workflow

By Merle Friedrichsen from the German National Library of Science and Technology (view original post)

On 9 / 10 November I was able to attend the “No Time to Wait 2”, a conference on open source software in (film) archives held at the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna. In contrast to the first “No Time to Wait” conference the scope was widened to audiovisual preservation, open formats, and standardization of formats. As part of the program, I had the chance to present on “Open Source Tools in the Digital Archive Workflow” from our perspective.

Requirements for Open Source Tools for Validation

When we receive a file for our collection we will test if it fulfills the requests of the standard (e.g. does the PDF-file conform to the PDF-Standards?). There are different scenarios in which we use open source software for validation, and from each of these different requirements occur.

One requirement is that the tool is easy to implement into existing software and workflows, as we want to use the validation software within our archive framework. If we have implemented the tool, we can validate the files upon ingest into out archive. In another business case, we require a simple graphical user interface (GUI). With such a tool the acquisitions team can test the files as soon as they are received, and maybe even ask for another (valid) file – if this is possible. When we are working together with other institutions or as a service provider, we typically receive a large amount of files which we validate before we ingest them into out archive. Due to this is we require a command line interface (CLI) in order to automate the validation of a large amount of files recursively through different folders.

Of course the validation software should fulfill its purpose: checking against the standard of the format. But apart from the standard, an institution might have other requests – for example a specific resolution in TIFF files for a digitization project or a rule against embedded objects other than images and AV in PDF/A files. In order to easily enforce these, the tool should be able to check the files against a custom policy. As we want to store the report (success or failure) of the validation as preservation metadata, the report should be available in XML or a different structured format, to make it easy to integrate or process the output further. Any metadata schema will be appreciated, as it makes it more readable and (if applicable) the mapping to any other metadata schema would be easier (or already existing). The performance of the tool is another requirement.

In an ideal world, we would only receive valid files from data producers and service partners. A step to reach this goal would be an easy way to allow external providers to validate their files before they hand it over to the library. A web service, where anybody could upload files and check them against the standard (and a custom policy) would serve such a purpose. If the file is not valid, a repair-possibility for the error encountered in the file would help the data producer/provider, to hand over only valid files.

So, in no particular order a short overview of the requirements have regarding open source software for validation (besides from being open source):

easy implementation into existing software and workflows
simple Graphical User Interface
Command Line Interface
checking against file format standards
checking against custom policy
use standards for reports
perform (fast) on a large amount of files
webservice (standards and policies)
repair-possibility

We‘ve tested two open source tools for different file formats: veraPDF (PDF/A), and mediaConch (for Matroska/FFV1 – for film). I am very happy to state that all of our requirements are fulfilled (or are possible to fulfill) by these tools.

VeraPDF

We have tested most of the requirements and the tool performs well. As we receive a lot of PDFs that do not need to fulfill the PDF/A standard but nevertheless must be without password, we created our own policy that checks whether a pdf is password encrypted or not. What we haven’t tested yet is the integration into our existing software, but the implementation is discussed in the Rosetta Format Library Working Group (FLWG), a user group responsible for – amongst other things – deciding which tools should be rolled out within the Rosetta archive framework. Until now I haven’t seen a web service based on veraPDF, but as the software is open source and well documented, it should be feasible to build one. Due to the fact that we could not find a file that could be repaired by veraPDF, we haven’t tested the given repair functionality. But it is possible to fix the PDF document metadata, e.g. if a file does not conform to the standard, the PDF/A flag can be removed automatically.

MediaConch

Most of our requirements were tested and are fulfilled by MediaConch. There are only a few requirements that we have not tested yet. One of these is the implementation into existing software – as with veraPDF, the FLWG is also discussing the integration of MediaConch. On the other hand we do not have special requirements for mkv / ffv1 files yet, so we couldn’t test a custom policy – simply because we currently do not have a custom policy. Due to the implemented checksums in ffv1 and Matroska there are several “repair-possibilities” for a file with a bitflip. But as we haven’t encountered a corrupted file (yet), we haven’t tested this possibility.

Conclusion

Both veraPDF and MediaConch are suitable for our needs regarding digital object validation. I have to admit that I had a lot of fun testing these new tools, looking into the reports and figuring out how to write my own policy. It is worthwhile to work with open source tools – especially when they are designed to fit the needs of a (digital) archive. And it is worth investing (money and / or time) to foster or to enhance these tools!

If you are interested in the conference you will find the recordings on the youtube channel of the conference.

Thanks to the organizers of this conference – it was inspiring and encouraging!

Sound and effective policy discussion on future standards needs to be founded on solid common understandings, thus you are all invited to take this survey

ViMM Virtual Multimodal Museum launches a survey on Metadata, Terminology and Identifiers Standards

Virtual Multimodal Museum (ViMM) is a high-visibility and participative Coordination and Support Action (CSA), funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme (CULT-COOP-8-2016). ViMM brings together Europe and the world’s leading public and private sector organizations working on Virtual Museums and in the wider sector of Digital Cultural Heritage, to support high quality policy development, decision making and the use of technical advances.

A common understanding and language is needed in order to have a fundamental basis and reach common standards; modernize the legal framework; promote re-use; identify research and innovation needs; and obtain complementary investments. Above all, sound and effective policy discussion needs to be founded on solid common understandings.

This 10 minutes survey aims to gather your advice concerning the current and future METADATA, TERMINOLOGY AND IDENTIFIER STANDARDS. We would appreciate your taking the time to complete it. Your responses are voluntary and will be confidential. Responses will not be identified by individual. All responses will be compiled together and analyzed as a group.

The compiled results will be published on the ViMM Platform https://www.vi-mm.eu, where you can also register to join the ViMM community.

Please take the survey here.

The church was 3D scanned for reference to become an interactive, informal and formal educational space.

Virtual reality re-creation preserves iconic Indianapolis church

Bethel AME Church. Credit: Indiana University

A 3D digital re-creation and preservation of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest African-American church in Indianapolis, was performed by Indiana University and recently presented to the public.

Bethel AME Church has historically been the heart of the African American community in Indianapolis and played vital roles to support the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad, which provided protection to slaves en route to Canada. Education was also an important mission of the church, establishing the first school for African American children at the church in 1858, as Indianapolis’s public schools did not allow African American children to enroll. Bethel AME Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991; at that time it was the only African-American church building in Indianapolis to receive that recognition. Because of deteriorating building, and without the major funding needed to proceed with the church repairs, the congregation began considering offers to buy the property and in early 2016 the building was sold to an Indianapolis-based developer, who agreed to preserve as much of the structure as possible, while planning to build a hotel on the property. The congregation was then moved to a new building.

In February 2017 Indiana University announced that its School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI had received a grant from the university to create a three-dimensional virtual reality model of the historic Vermont Street church. IUPUI students collected 3,000 images for use in the modeling project, thus protecting the church’s history and legacy with 3D digital preservation techniques using virtual reality.

“Many people have visited or attended special events at the Bethel AME Church, once located at 414 W. Vermont St., and now they have the opportunity to revisit the church in virtual reality,” said Andrea Copeland, associate professor and chair of the Department of Library and Information Science.

“They will experience a unique method of preserving a historic place,” said media arts and science faculty member Zeb Wood. “Through the use of a VR headset, they will see the inside of the church’s sanctuary to scale. Participants will be able to move around inside of the church, and soon they will be able to interact with and learn about its members and their contributions to the city of Indianapolis.”

The church was 3D scanned for reference to become an interactive, informal and formal educational space that instigates innovative, collaborative learning opportunities.

About Indiana University: https://www.indiana.edu/

Read the press release on Phys.org.

Brussels (Belgium), 27th March 2018

Promoting Cultural and Creative Industries: Maximising their Economic and Social Contribution in the EU

Europe is the second largest Cultural and Creative industries (CCIs or Cultural and Creative sector, CCS) market in the world after Asia. A study by ‘Cultural Times’ estimates that European Union creates 32% of global CCI revenues and 26% of world-wide CCI jobs. Numerous surveys have proven that this field is one of the most sustainable in times of crises and can more easily adapt to the changing conditions. According to Eurostat, in 2015 the cultural sector constituted 2.9% of the total European workforce. The whole CCIs sector represents around 4% of European GDP and provides jobs to 8 million people (European Commission, 2017). The CCI sector is an important player in the economic and political context, and its strength lays on its ability to encourage both competitiveness and inclusiveness in different fields of business, although its further development still encounters certain obstacles.

During the last years, the European Union has launched a number of initiatives to support and promote the CCIs. In addition to the €1.5 bn Creative Europe Programme adopted in the framework of the 2015-2018 Work Plan for Culture, in May the European Commission approved a strategy for international cultural relations based on the communication ‘’Culture in the heart of International Relations’’. Moreover, in the input document for the Summit of European leaders in Sweden (November 2017), the Commission invited Member States to include the CCIs in the education system, strengthen their position in the economic market and facilitate access to the available start-ups funds. The European Commission set the following ambitious objectives for 2025: boosting Creative Europe’s Guarantee facility, starting #Digital4Culture strategy and updating European Agenda for Culture.

Despite the many positive initiatives taken by the EU, the CCIs’ capacity is not fully exploited, often undervalued and lacking concrete support from the national and international authorities. At the same time, the cultural sector is undergoing considerable changes due to the digital revolution. Legislation struggles to follow these changing circumstances and CCIs’ potential remains blocked by bureaucratic and administrative requirements, lack of data and weak cross-sector coordination. This leads to challenges in the field of author rights protection, training possibilities and market harmonisation.

This timely symposium, organised in the European year of cultural heritage, will evaluate recent initiatives and policy developments in the field of Cultural and Creative Industries, and present good practice and emerging challenges to the sector. Participants will exchange views and perspectives on the possible strategies to tackle these challenges, and will debate the role of CCIs in national politics, education, international communication and social inclusion.

Delegates will:

Find out about the different CCIs funding opportunities and cooperation networks
Look into the European initiatives to boost the CCIs sector, such as Creative Europe Programme, Support to literary translation projects, Cultural and Creative Sector Guarantee Facility, European Creative Hubs
Address ways to overcome the lack of data and the need to systemise information
Enhance the knowledge of the digital capacity-building methods in the field of CCI
Identify ways to get access to the European market for companies operating in the cultural and creative sector, according to their size
Analyse the methods to eliminate the fragmentation of different educational domains using innovations from the CCIs
Learn from success stories on international communication based on cultural exchanges

Early bird rate: a 20% early registration discount off the standard delegate rates (subject to type of organisation and terms and conditions) for bookings received by the 16th February 2018. For further details, please refer to the enclosed event brochure.

Programme and registration: https://www.publicpolicyexchange.co.uk/events/IC27-PPE2

Event’s brochure: http://www.publicpolicyexchange.co.uk/media/events/flyers/IC27-PPE2_flyer.pdf

Black Box is an innovative arts and cognition research project, that is changing the way we understand dance and theatrical performance.

BlackBox – Arts & Cognition

BlackBox is an interdisciplinary ERC-funded project hosted by Universidad Nova de Lisboa (FCSH-UNL) since September 2014, under the direction of Prof. Carla Fernandes as its Principal Investigator.

With a wide-breadth duration of 5 years, the BlackBox project aims at developing a cutting-edge model for a web-based collaborative platform, dedicated to the documentation of compositional processes by contemporary performing artists with a focus on dance and theatre. The platform will enable a robust representation of the implicit knowledge in performing practices while applying novel visualization technologies to support it.

As an Arts&Cognition project, BlackBox aims at the analysis of the invited artists’ unique conceptual structures, by crossing the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication (Human Interaction, Gesture Studies, Cognitive Science) and Computer Vision.

General objectives:

Perform theoretical and innovative interdisciplinary research on the intersection of multimodal communication and cognition, performance studies and digital media.
Document, transmit and preserve the unexplored knowledge contained in performance composition processes.
Assist artists with creative tools to facilitate their choreographic/dramaturgic practices on a collaborative basis.

The ERC Starting-Grant which supports this project has allowed the recruitment of 3 Post-Docs and 2 PhD students in the research domains of Cognitive Linguistics, Digital Media applied to the Performing Arts and Computer Science. The project also hosts several freelance collaborators and external service providers in the areas of graphic and web design, video, photography and software development, as well as international consultants in Digital Archiving and Intangible Cultural Heritage.

It has additional collaborators from: Interactive Multimedia Group at FCT-UNL; the Neuroscience Programme at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown; C-DaRE at Coventry University, UK; The Linguistics Centre of Universidade do Porto; and the Motion Bank Institute, Frankfurt.

Black Box website: http://blackbox.fcsh.unl.pt/

Download an article about BlackBox produced by Science Impact, a series of high-quality, open access and free to access science reports designed to enable the dissemination of research impact to key stakeholders. The publication features content from the world’s leading research agencies, policy groups, universities and research projects. To read the full edition of Impact containing this article please visit: https://impact.pub/November2017digitaledition/