Digital meets Culture

The workshop seeks to identify case studies and examples of these processes in action in both urban and rural contexts.

REACH project at conference/workshop “Cultural heritage, social cohesion and place attachment” in Budapest

Organized by the Hungarian Academy of Science, Centre for Social Science / Institute of Sociology, an important event took place in Budapest on 20-21 March.

Following the opening talk by Melanie K. Smith (entitled “New Insights into Cultural heritage and Sense of Place using a Cultural Ecosystem Services Framework”) the event was organized in various parallel sessions across two days. The main focus of this event was to explore the relationship between cultural heritage (both built/material and intangible/immaterial), social cohesion and place attachment.

REACH project and the pilot on minority heritage was presented by Eszter György and Gábor Oláh (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University) in the Parallel session 10 “Heritage of ethnic and minority groups”, chaired by Zsuzsanna Árendás.

The talk “The creation of resilient Roma cultural heritage. The case study of a bottom-up initiative from North-Eastern Hungary” presented the research carried on by ELTE in the framework of REACH project, focused on marginalised minorities and aiming to show how the institutionalisation of their (re)appropriated Cultural Heritage (CH) can result in the economic and social revival of their communities.

Full programme of the event available here

Girona, 21-24 November 2018

Image and Research | 2018 Edition

The Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) of the Girona City Council and the Association of Archivists of Catalonia, are calling the 15th Image and Research International Conference, which will be held in the Palau de Congressos de Girona from 22th to 23th of November. On 21th and 24th, two workshops related to the areas of interest of the Conference will be organized.

21 November – Workshop 1: When the alarms fire. 5 critical aspects for the conservation of
photography

24 November – Workshop 2: Digitization of color photography

Keynote speeches 22-23 November:

The digitization of color negatives in the perspective of archival fonds; Bea Martinez, CTIM / Polytechnic University of Catalonia
Integrity of digital image; Frederik Temmermans, IMEC, Vrje Universitet Brussels
30 years of photographic collections management. A projection towards the future; Joan Boadas, CRDI City of Girona
The gammification of photographic archives: a new scenario for access and citizen participation; Tomislav Ivanjiko, University of Zagreb

Website: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_properes-ENG.php

In addition to the programme of keynotes speeches, presentations and workshops, the conference includes a discussion space to reflect on the possibility of bringing photographic and audiovisual archives closer to new audiences. On the one hand, the prominence of the image in today’s society and in various fields has been established, whether information, creation or interpersonal communication. On the other hand, the conversion of archives into digital spaces allows many barriers imposed by the media itself to be broken down and, at the same time, offers a series of possibilities for the dissemination and re-use that may be of interest to a much wider audience.

Program, schedule and workshops at the following link: http://www.girona.cat/web/sgdap/docs/JornadesIR/Imatge_Recerca_programa_2-ENG.pdf

Conference registration: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_inscripcions-ENG.php

Workshops registration: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_inscripcions_tallers-ENG.php

Call for papers open until 15th June

Tribune of Experience call open until 31st July

Her multimedia installations make use of digital and interactive technologies integrated into traditional methods of art production.

Still Life, Rhonda Holberton’s solo exhibition in NY

April 6 – June 2, 2018
Opening Reception, April 7 (check gallery website for hours)
Transfer Gallery
1030 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211

CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is pleased to present Still Life, Rhonda Holberton’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from April 6 – June 2, 2018 at Transfer Gallery, NY.

Still Life features a networked video installation, prints rendered from augmented reality, immersive wallpaper constructed from bump map imaging, and gold mined from the California landscape. The installation peels back multiple layers of material translation to reveal a displaced human body within contemporary systems of value creation.
As the title Still Life suggests, this exhibition utilizes material and process to transgress the boundary between stillness and life. Materials run the gamut from gold dust and mosquitoes, to psychic readings and mannequins salvaged from the American Apparel bankruptcy liquidation. These objects are not simply things in themselves. Rather, they carry a coded memory of their personal, material, and cultural relations. The works weave together to form a narrative documenting the artist’s attempts to make sense of the corporeal body within a dematerialized landscape.
Artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and blockchain accounting are already destabilizing the role of the body in manufacturing, transportation, finance, and communication. Holberton’s investigations attempt to recover the value of the biological body through labor and material transformation.

Holberton explains, “I wanted to insert my body into a local system that indexes a much larger system, what Timothy Morton would call a hyperobject, something too large and complicated to be understood by a single human processor. The works represent my attempts to engage corporeally within a global metabolism represented in concepts of the Anthropocene and Capitalocene- to pull value out of the system through direct physical labor.”

Today, the technology boom of Silicon Valley parallels last century’s gold rush; both activities belong to a similar narrative circumscribed by masculine entrepreneurial ideology. Similarly it’s hard not to think about the mosquito without thinking of the virus, currently one closely associated with fertility and as index of a changing climate. These works offer a reminder that while the bio-technical divide grows ever more transparent, we are still very much dependent on the ‘six-inch layer of topsoil, and the fact that it rains.’

http://www.rhondaholberton.com
http://cultexhibitions.com/
http://transfergallery.com/

Boston, 24-27 September 2018

iPres 2018 – where art and science meet: the art in science and the science in art

iPRES 2018 – Where Art and Science Meet – The Art In the Science & The Science In the Art of Digital Preservation – will be co-hosted by MIT Libraries and Harvard Library on September 24-27, 2018.

Come celebrate the 15th conference with us at iPRES 2018 in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are pleased to announce that iPRES2018’s online registration is now open: https://ipres2018.org/registration. There are workshops and tutorials to sign up for, papers and panels, posters and demonstrations, and more. Watch for updates about the first digital preservation game room, original graphics, lightning sessions, and other programming.

Do note that early bird registration ends June 30. Please contact the registration team if you require any further information regarding your participation at this conference.

The theme for iPRES 2018: where art and science meet: the art in science and the science in art – aims to broaden the voices and approaches participating in the conference. iPRES brings together a broad array of practitioners, researchers, educators, providers, students, and others to share lessons learned from engaging in digital preservation, including recent research, developments, and innovations. MIT Libraries and Harvard Library are co-hosting the conference is in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 24-27, 2018.

The iPRES 2018 Organizing Team seeks contributions that tell stories about bridging knowledge gaps in teams, implementing technologies, and overcoming barriers towards proper digital stewarding of digital items, assets, works and collections. Be creative. Be inspiring. Be inclusive. In keeping with the theme, we will embrace creative proposals that demonstrate how research and theory directly impact and influence practice at all levels.

Important Dates

Optional Abstracts: We encourage authors to submit papers abstracts to receive feedback on your proposal prior to submitting your paper. The iPRES 2018 Organizing Team will provide feedback to submitters for abstracts received between 15 February and 20 March.
Papers: Full papers for peer review are due by 15 April.
- Submitters will receive review comments by 15 May.
- Revised papers with revisions that address reviewer comments are due 15 June.
Other peer-reviewed contributions: proposals for posters and demonstrations, workshops and tutorials, and panels are due 15 April.
Non-peer reviewed contributions: digital preservation games, original graphics, and lightning talks will not be submitted through EasyChair. These contributions will be due beginning in May – watch for details.
Post-conference revisions: Authors are encouraged to update their papers based on discussions during the conference. These will be due by October 31.

See iPres2018.org for the full text of the Call for Contributions and submission instructions.

See iPres2018.org for the full text of the Preliminary Call for Contributions.

NPM is the first Asian museum to join the innovative Musebooks platform

National Palace Museum (Taipei) Digitizes Collection Publications with Musebooks

The National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei – the most visited art museum in Asia according to The Art Newspaper – has teamed up with Musebooks and will now put its priceless collections online with catalogues in an innovative digital format. The National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei is the first Asian museum to make its publications available through Musebooks, a Belgium-based start-up. Musebooks already works with MoMA New York, Thames & Hudson, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, and other museums and publishers around the world on the production of digital art books.
This international partnership, facilitated through Acer Inc., will bring the NPM’s priceless collections of Chinese artifacts to a European and US audience in an accessible and cutting-edge digital format. Musebooks is delighted to work with NPM publications and add Asian art to the platform’s current strengths in Old Masters and Modern art. NPM publications on Musebooks will be available in English with a selection also in Chinese. The first of these publications are already online and available to the public.

Previews
Splendors of the National Palace Museum: www.musebooks.world/eu/en/reading/preview/307
Landscape Reunited: www.musebooks.world/eu/en/reading/preview/303
Landscape Reunited (in Chinese): www.musebooks.world/eu/en/reading/preview/310

Contact
Sophia Rochmes, Managing Director of Art Partnerships
sophia.rochmes @ musebooks.world | +32 485.42.39.69
www.musebooks.world | www.facebook.com/musebooksworld

About Musebooks: The Musebooks format is the first digital reading experience specially designed for art books. Unlike the traditional ebook format, which is not suited for image-heavy books, a musebook allows readers to zoom in on images at high resolutions and to easily switch between 3 different reading modes: text view, image view, and page view. Musebooks are stored in the reader’s personal cloud library and are accessible on all devices via a web browser or the free Musebooks app available for Apple and Android.
Video intro to Musebooks (1min): http://video.musebooks.world/

About the National Palace Museum: The NPM in Taipei is one of the top 10 most visited art museums in the world (#1 in Asia), with attendance of over 4.6 million people per year. A leader among museums, the NPM has used digitization to increase the public’s access to its collection of nearly 700,000 Chinese artifacts. The NPM website offers educational videos, open data and image downloads, and the museum partnered with Acer in 2015 to create its first e-books for purchase online.

San Francisco (US), 26-30 October 2018

Digital Heritage 2018 – 3rd International Congress & Expo

New Realities: Authenticity & Automation in the Digital Age

In San Francisco, at the epicenter of the digital revolution, DigitalHERITAGE 2018 was organized with an amazing lineup of talks, exhibits, workshops, tutorials, special sessions and more, including:

Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle on the future of net
Prof of Digital Museology Sarah Kenderdine on reframing museums, immersion and more
California State Archivist Nancy Lenoil on Yosemite and digital archives
Prof Lin-Shan Lee on breakthroughs in voice search for heritage
Prof Deirdre Mulligan of the Center for Law & Technology on digital truth
Dr Brian Fisher on the effort to 3D digitize every ant species on earth, and
a special conversation on the future of preservation with father of the internet & Google Vice President Dr. Vint Cerf

5 days, 18 federating events, 100s of talks, 3 amazing venues, 50,000 sqft expo, 10 tours

WHAT: The leading global event on digital technology for documenting, conserving and sharing heritage—from monuments & sites, to museums & collections, libraries & archives, and intangible traditions & languages. Featuring keynotes from cultural leaders & digital pioneers, a tech expo, research demos, scientific papers, policy panels, best practice case studies, hands-on workshops, plus tours of technology and heritage labs.
FOCUS: Culture and technology fields from computer science to cultural preservation, archaeology to art, architecture to archiving, museums to musicology, history to humanities, computer games to computer graphics, digital surveying to social science, libraries to language, and many more.
WHO: Some 750+ leaders from across the 4 heritage domains together with industry to explore, discuss & debate the potentials and pitfalls of digital for culture. Heritage and digital professionals, from educators to technologists, researchers to policy makers, executives to curators, archivists to scientists, and more.
WHERE: In the heart of the digital revolution on the waterfront in San Francisco, USA. For the first time outside Europe following our 1st Congress in Marseille in 2013 and 2nd in Granada in 2015.
WHEN: 26-30 October 2018

Workshop, Tutorials & Special Session Proposals Due online: 15 April 2018
Papers & Expo Proposals Due online: 20 May 2018
Notification: 15 July 2018
Camera Ready Deadline: 1 September 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS, EXPO, EXHIBITIONS >> PDF, 881 Kb

Website: http://www.digitalheritage2018.org

A federated Congress of many leading events, DigitalHERITAGE 2018 included:
2 Conferences:

the Int’l Society on Virtual Systems and Multimedia: VSMM 2018 – 24th International Conference
the Pacific Neighborhood Consortium: PNC 2018 – 25th Conference & Joint Meetings

1 Exposition by ARCHAEOVIRTUAL & Italian National Research Council: DigitalHERITAGE Expo & Livestream from Paestum, Italy

+15 Special Events.

DigitalHERITAGE 2018 run 5 days and explores digital innovation and challenges across 4 heritage domains: Built Heritage, Artifacts & Collections, Libraries & Archives, Intangible Culture & Traditions, and across 3 broad groups of digital technology: Reality Capture (digitization, scanning, remote sensing, …), Reality Computing (databases & repositories, KM, GIS, CAD, 3DCG, authoring, archives, …), Reality Creation (VR, AR, MR, games, visualization, multimedia, 3Dprinting, embodiment, …).

Deadline for submission postponed to 10 April 2018

REACH Opening Conference: Call for Posters

The opening conference of the REACH project will be held the 10th and 11th of May 2018 in Budapest organized by ELTE University, Eötvös Loránd Tudomanyegyetem and kindly hosted by the Hungarian National Museum.

A poster/video session will be opened during the event; it will be dedicated to innovative and creative projects on the theme of resilient communities and social participation, in order to show the results obtained in establishing a participatory and resilient cultural environment.

We are looking for Cultural Heritage projects that involve resilient communities and social participation from Europe and around the world.

Projects and Proposals will be selected by REACH’s Conference Committee. Special consideration will be given to ensure that a variety of topics, geographical and cultural ranges will be represented.
Visit the Call for Posters page for submission guidelines and selection criteria and complete the application form by ~~15 March~~ 10 April 2018.
ATTENTION: deadline Call for Posters/video postponed through April 10 2018.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
For the REACH project: www.reach-culture.eu
For the REACH Opening Conference: reach-culture.eu/budapestconference2018

Budapest (Hungary), 10-11 May 2018

REACH Opening Conference

The opening conference of the REACH project will be organized by ELTE University, Eötvös Loránd Tudomanyegyetem on the 10th and 11th of May 2018 in Budapest, kindly hosted by the Hungarian National Museum.

REACH, Re-designing Access to Cultural Heritage for a wider participation in preservation, (re)use and management of European culture, is a three-year project, started on the 1st of November 2017, to establish a Social Platform for participatory approaches and social innovation in culture.
The project is supported by the European Commission in the frame of the
Horizon2020 programme, and coordinated by Coventry University.
The REACH Social Platform aims to offer a sustainable space for meeting, discussion and collaboration by all those with a stake in the field of culture and Cultural Heritage.
By showcasing concrete, participatory experiences and identifying good practice by means of the project’s pilots, a robust framework will be developed for building and sustaining a resilient European Cultural Heritage

The REACH international conference in Budapest will introduce the scope of the project, offering a great opportunity to discuss and compare successful examples of participatory processes and researches. Interesting speeches, excellent occasions for networking and discussion, and participatory activities will be part of the event. Moreover, a dedicated poster/video sessions complements the conference, where the participants will present projects of interest around the conference topics.

Event website: www.reach-culture.eu/budapestconference2018
About REACH project: http://reach-culture.eu/

About 80 persons involved in a captivating showcase of rural heritage preservation good practice

Annual cleaning of the medieval irrigation channel of Barjas

On Saturday 17th of February, the University of Granada, together with the local irrigators community, organised the annual cleaning of the medieval irrigation channel of Barjas and of the branch La Hijuela, surrounding Cáñar. In this fieldwork activity took part 80 people, 64 volunteers and 16 irrigators.

The volunteers involved were university students from different disciplines, cultural and environmental associations members, and people interested in the conservation of this particular rural heritage and its corresponding cultural landscape. They came from Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Chile, and for some of them was the first time visiting Sierra Nevada and discovering historical irrigation channels.This annual cleaning is intended to help local farmers to put in use 3 km of irrigation channel, recovered in 2014 as part of the FP7 MEMOLA project (http://memolaproject.eu/node/927), and to start the irrigation period. This irrigation channel helps having water during summer period and increase the water availability in the village springs.

Volunteers participating in this one-day action came in contact with the local population, working side-by-side and learning from their practices the values of this hydraulic rural system.The cleaning was carried on throughout the morning, then, when the water could flow through the channel, the traditional water celebration started and the local community invited all participants to have lunch together, tasting local products and traditional kitchen recipes. After lunch, a local group of musicians entertained the public with traditional music.
The University of Granada took the opportunity to hand over the Hispania Nostra good practices award(http://memolaproject.eu/node/2316) to the local irrigators community, for the recovery of Barjas channel in 2014. Similar events will take place next month in collaboration with others local irrigators communities in Sierra Nevada, in the framework of REACH project pilot case on rural heritage.

Outcomes of the first workshop on small towns heritage pilot headed by Charles University with Czech Republic associated partners, 15th February 2018, Prague.

Small towns in promotion of their cultural heritage: possibilities and experiences

The project team in Prague has organized the first meeting of the REACH network of associate partners. The event took place on February 15th and was arranged in the format of a one-day workshop that was intended to prepare ground for collaboration in the upcoming pilot on small-town heritage. It was visited by a significant number of twenty partners from the pilot regions in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Belarus and a new potential member from Poland, a doctoral student of cultural studies from Wroclaw University. The program was organized into four panels. The first one was devoted to presentation of the project’s major objectives and to explanation of the method of critical mapping, SWOT analysis and composition of the database of best practices in cultural heritage protection, its re/use and management. The second panel focused on possible forms of collaboration with associate partners. What can they offer, and what they expect to achieve from the partnership. The third panel opened discussion about the ways in which the actors operating in national scale approach local actors and motivate their activities related to heritage use and re-use. The fourth panel was devoted to the heritage activities carried out by towns, places and associations.

The debate was fueled by interesting cases of participatory activities in relation to cultural heritage that were presented on one hand by experts from official institutions such as National Heritage Institute and CzechTourism, and on the other hand by architects operating as volunteers in European Council for the Village and Small Town (ECOVAST) in Slovakia and in Petr Parler Association on one side and local actors from towns represented by partners from Slovak town Svidník, a large factory operating in the town Česká Třebová, and a microregional project for participatory activities created by a group of citizens based mainly in small town Stařeč on the other. The experts operating in NGOs Institute for monuments and culture/ Institut pro památky a kulturu o.p.s. and Anthropictures, Studio antropologického výzkumu /Anthropology research studio represented those who register, survey, motivate and support the participatory activities.
The discussion indicated several themes for further reflection, such as: the persisting tendency to limit the idea of heritage in small-town setting to old and tangible monuments; the discrepancies between the values of local residents and the perspectives of protection agencies; the double-edged relations between tourism and local sustainability; or the impact of participation by the local citizenries in all phases of the heritage practices on their success or failure. Very informal and friendly atmosphere, lively discussion and a desire to meet soon again was the feeling generally shared by all participants as well as organizers. It was intellectually very rewarding and pleasant event.