Digital meets Culture

special issue 'Perceiving Cultural Heritage Through Digital Technologies' / EXTENDED deadline 28th February

Call for Papers “Studies in Digital Heritage”, Indiana University journal

The aim of this special issue is to solicit interdisciplinary studies about the complex phenomenon that takes place during the aesthetic and synesthetic involvement of a human observer in the perception of Cultural Heritage and art mediated by virtual and augmented reality or other forms of multimedia technologies. The objective is to create a snapshot of the current state of the art about transdisciplinary methodological approaches.

Guest editors: Perla Gianni Falvo, Massimo Bergamasco, Giovanni Valeri Manera

EXTENDED Submission deadline: February 28, 2018

Introduction to the Special Issue on “Perceiving Cultural Heritage Through Digital Technologies”

Contemporary cognitive science supports Cultural Heritage design activities through new and revised scientific perspectives relating to different modes of learning. The concept of affordance, the discovery of mirror neurons, studies on emotional intelligence, multiple intelligences, and psycho-physiological analyses cast light on how we establish relationships, absorb information, and then process and embody it. These disciplines offer important cues for defining design strategies in developing virtual and augmented reality applications within the framework of places or objects of cultural interest, such as museums, historical buildings, monuments or archaeological sites. Rather than being merely desirable, it is now essential to take such cognitive science advances into due consideration in design activities related to the perception of Cultural Heritage.

The response of the human cognitive system to the perception of aesthetic and cultural contents may trigger its understanding at once, through to the so-called “Interior Epiphany”, a concept related to the Renaissance notion of the centrality of the human being. Multimedia technologies may help an observer in activating such an interior epiphany, but the cause-effect relationship is still a matter for further research. It is crucial to verify the effectiveness of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) strategies and understand how the phenomenon of the contact between visitor and art can be subjected to an impact assessment analysis based on a protocol combining quantitative and qualitative data.

Topics of interests

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Design strategies for virtual and augmented applications in museums
Neuroscience studies on aesthetic perception through digital technologies
Embodiment studies
Cognitive studies
Psychophysiological studies
Narrative approaches for enhancing user involvement in cultural visits
E-learning and art history
Virtual archeology
Analysis of user experience in virtual museums
Sustainability of ICT for Art and Cultural Heritage

More info: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/sdh/announcement/view/110

New release of the PDF/A conformance checker.

veraPDF 1.10 released on International Digital Preservation Day

The latest version of veraPDF is now available to download. veraPDF is an open source PDF/A validator, and version 1.10 marks the first release of veraPDF as part of the Open Preservation Foundation’s (OPF) reference toolset.

This release has improved optimisation for the creation and cleanup of temporary files and parsing of text-related data in PDF documents. It also fixes some minor issues that users who have upgraded to Java version 9 may have encountered, including a failure to start. There are also a number of other fixes and improvements which are documented in the latest release notes.

Release notes
https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/releases/latest.

Download veraPDF
http://downloads.verapdf.org/rel/verapdf-installer.zip.

Feedback

Most of the changes in this release are in response to the constructive feedback we’ve received from our users. Testing and user feedback is key to improving the software. Please download and use the latest release. If you experience problems, or wish to suggest improvements, please add them to the project’s GitHub issue tracker: https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/issues.

Getting started
User guides and documentation are published at: http://docs.verapdf.org/.

Support veraPDF

veraPDF is open source, free to download, to use and to modify. However, it is not free to host, maintain, support or continue to develop the software. Currently only OPF members support veraPDF financially as part of their membership fees.

How can you help?

Become an OPF member;
Make a donation to OPF and veraPDF development;
Volunteer your time and skills by improving the software and documentation.

http://verapdf.org/donate/

About veraPDF

veraPDF was originally funded by the PREFORMA project (http://www.preforma-project.eu/). PREFORMA (PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives) was a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme. The project’s main aim was to address the challenge of implementing standardised file formats for preserving digital objects in the long term, giving memory institutions full control over the acceptance and management of preservation files into digital repositories. veraPDF is now maintained by the Open Preservation Foundation.

Subscribe to the veraPDF mailing list at: http://lists.verapdf.org/.

Beijing (China), 13-14 September 2018

CHCD – International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Conservation and Digitization

Organized by THID Tsinghua Heritage Institution for Digitalization in Beijing, this biannual event had attracted so far foreign experts from over 30 countries and regions promoting a tradition of international collaboration and exchange on the theme of cultural heritage, digital technologies, conservation and digitization.

The theme of 2018 conference was “Re-member: heritage driven economy”. The aim was to explore the potential of heritage as a driver for the economic growth (in response to the latest Chinese policy as well as the UNESCO mandate). The conference intended to generate conversation not only among the academia but also connecting the stakeholders of the heritage sites and the heritage-sensitive creative industries, focusing on the field of heritage conservation and cutting-edge research related to the application of digital technology in heritage conservation. International panels based on country, including multidisciplinary experts, have showcase their research, projects, lessons, and opportunities, promoting their tangible and intangible cultural Heritage.

Official email of the CHCD committee secretariat for any information: chcdcommittee@thid.cn

Preliminary schedule:
• September 12: Registration
• September 13-14: Conference
• September 15-16: Optional excursion

The Jury will select 1 winner and 2 honorable mentions for each category, out of which the

ITS LIQUID international contest 2017: application deadline 1st December 2017

ITS LIQUID Group, a communication platform for contemporary art, architecture and design, is proud to present ITS LIQUID International Contest – 5th Edition 2017. The contest is a great opportunity to present your works in galleries and art spaces in the most influential cities in the world. Taking part in ITS LIQUID Contest, you can win the participation in contemporary art exhibitions in Venice during the 16th Architecture Biennale, in New York, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, interviews and featured articles on specialized magazines and platforms, one year contracts for the representation in influential art galleries.

ITS LIQUID Contest is developed in partnership with a professional jury, composed by renowed curators, gallerists, architects, fashion designers, high level experts and important professionals of the Art, Architecture, Design and Fashion Worlds.

ITS LIQUID Contest is composed by ten categories: painting, photography, video-art, sculpture and installation, performing art, architecture, product design, fashion design, computer graphic, illustration and drawing.

More info and application form: http://www.itsliquid.com/contest/
The deadline for registration is December 01, 2017. REGISTER NOW!

led by Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University, this course starting mid-January 2018 provides a wide overview of tourism issues at UNESCO World Heritage Sites

“Tourism Management at UNESCO World Heritage Sites”, a new online course, free and open

This MOOC “Tourism Management at UNESCO World Heritage Sites”, produced by the UNESCO-UNITWIN Network “Culture, Tourism, and Development”, provides an introduction to tourism at UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Moving from UNESCO’s principles and doctrines, the MOOC covers Communication Technologies, Economy, Management and Planning, and more… It is aimed to policy makers, site managers, students and people active in the tourism industry.

This MOOC is designed and run by an international network of prestigious universities: highly profiled researchers and professors share their knowledge with you in an accessible way on tourism at UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The course consists of 8 modules, released one per week. During each module, learners will be able to gain knowledge about different aspects of Tourism Management at UNESCO World Heritage Sites thanks to ad-hoc documents and videos produced by members of an international network of prominent universities. Participants will also have the opportunity to assess their understanding and learning progress through quizzes, as well as through various activities, discussions, and peer-to-peer evaluated activities.

Learn More and Enroll: https://www.fun-mooc.fr/courses/course-v1:Paris1+16008+session01/about

Goethe Institute, Bratislava (Slovakia), 30 November 2017

Symposium: Roma Cultural Heritage

Representatives of various institutions, researchers, art critics, Roma intellectuals and artists met at this symposium to discuss, together with the audience, the current situation of the Roma cultural heritage. The invited experts faced topics such as the distribution of Roma collections in Europe, the most effective collection methods currently used, the institutions that preserve and present the cultural heritage of the Roma at present.
They confronted the strategies and methods of collecting, caring and presenting the art of Roma, investigating possible new methodologies for the presentation of art history and artifacts of Roma without exoticism of outdated ethnographic museum exhibitions.

The symposium has been a collaborative event of the Goethe Institute Bratislava, tranzit.sk, RomArchive – Digital Archive of the Roma, and Spolka. The supporter of symposium was RomArchive’s Visual Art Section.

Berlin (Germany), 1-2 December 2017

REACH Kick-Off Meeting

On Dicember 1st and 2nd 2017, the Institut für Museumsforschung Staatliche Museen zu Berlin hosted the REACH Kick-off Meeting, organized by partner SPK.

The REACH project is based on the proposition that Cultural Heritage (CH) plays an important role in contributing to social integration in Europe, and that a fuller and more detailed picture of the range, type and impact of research and participatory research methodologies, current and future, associated with these subjects, will further enhance their potential for social good.

This project aims to establish a social platform as a sustainable space for meeting, discussion and collaboration by a wide-ranging network of development tourism bodies, education, creative industries, policy-makers, professionals, academic experts, arts practitioners, professionals in archives and galleries, and associations, local societies and interest groups representative of non-professionals– all those with a stake in research and practice in the field of culture and CH.

The REACH consortium comprises 7 partners from 6 EU countries: UK, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Spain. It has been carefully built in order to secure the range of necessary, and complementary, competences for the social platform and to offer a very wide geographic spread.
The consortium includes: 4 universities (Coventry – the Coordinator, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Universidad de Granada and Univerzita Karlova in Prague), one SME successfully active for many years in the sector (Promoter), the well-acknowledged foundation for Prussian CH (SPK), and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MISE).

Project website: www.reach-culture.eu

[Show as slideshow]

Running from September 9 to December 10 2017, this exhibition joins art and civic engagement to collectively imagining the futures of Philadelphia

Civic Engagement at the Museum: Philadelphia Assembled

A new exhibition, dedicated to the civic engagement, is currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Set up by the artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, Philadelphia Assembled is different from any other exhibition because it is not putting pleasure as its end goal, but offers a collection of facts happened in Philadelphia which are meant to create a sense of tension within the minds of the exhibition’s visitors, and to stimulate the viewers to organize themselves towards improved communal ends.

This project articulates a collective narrative about the city of Philadelphia around five principles:
Reconstructions: How do we rewrite our histories?
Sovereignty: How do we define self-determination & unity?
Sanctuary: How do we create safe spaces?
Futures: How do we reimagine our tomorrow?
Movement: How do we share knowledge?

Through the reproduction of sounds, interviews, images and symbols, the exhibition aims to educate, inspire and encourage visitors to react to injustice and marginalization, by promoting Collective Actions and affirming values such as unity, self-determination and overcome of stereotypes.

The initiative of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to support such kind of exhibition, also taking the risk of discomforting its guests, rouses interest and admiration while it also shows how Art and Culture can be important channels to promote civic engagement.

Official page of the exhibition at PMA: https://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/854.html

An article appeared on Hyperallergic magazine

3D laser scanning and other advanced technologies are the tools for fighting Heritage sites' loss

CyArk 500 Challenge: digital preservation of top archaeologic sites

The CyArk 500 Challenge has the ambitious goal to digitally preserve 500 cultural heritage sites within the next five years. Heritage sites are a significant part of our collective memory and we are losing them at an alarming rate, due to natural causes and also human’s. Non-profit US organization CyArk, which has already successfully preserved “scores of the world’s most famous cultural sites,” is partnering with the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to laser scan a number of at-risk sites, including some in Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East.

CyArk was founded in 2003 to ensure heritage sites are available to future generations, while making them uniquely accessible today. CyArk operates internationally as a non-profit organization with the mission of using new technologies to create a free, 3D online library of the world’s cultural heritage sites before they are lost to natural disasters, destroyed by human aggression or ravaged by the passage of time. CyArk and its partners are on a mission to save these cultural heritage sites digitally before more are ravaged by war, terrorism, arson, urban sprawl, climate change, earthquakes, floods, and other threats.

CyArk has already completed 40 projects toward its goal of 500. These sites, called the Exemplar Projects, include Pompeii, Babylon, Mt. Rushmore, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Titanic, the Sydney Opera House and, most recently, the Tower of London. Members of the heritage community are invited to submit sites for consideration to be included in the CyArk 500. Interested governments, organizations and individuals are asked to submit a letter of interest. Submissions will be evaluated by the CyArk 500 Advisory Council for selection as part of the 500. Letters that pass the initial review will be asked to submit a formal application for review by the Advisory Council. Selected sites may be eligible to receive digital preservation funding through the CyArk 500 Fund.

More about CyArk and the 500 Challenge: http://www.cyark.org/projects/

Milan (Italy), 6 December 2017

Europeana AGM 2017

The Europeana Network Association AGM 2017 took place on 6 December in Milan, where it was possible for attendants to meet colleagues and peers to exchange professional knowledge and get inspired in a lovely museum surrounding in the run up to 2018.

The meeting happened in a friendly atmosphere where discussions for 2018 plans, reflection on 2017 actions, and inspiring speeches from different experiences with digital cultural heritage created a nice environment to officially lauch Europeana’s support to 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.

image by PostScriptum via Facebook

Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci, CC BY-SA

There were five good reasons why you should be there:

1. Be part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage launch in Milan on 7 December with our new #AllezCulture campaign #SoDoWe

Whether you can attend or not, please spare 10 minutes for a new #AllezCulture campaign dedicated to the Value of Culture in support of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018! The European Year of Cultural Heritage will launch at the Culture Forum on 7 December in Milan. To spread the word, we want to create a massive @EuropeanaEU thunderclap on Twitter on the evening of the event: follow the instructions to help us make noise and properly launch the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

Go to Thunderclap
Press the ‘support with Twitter’ button
Copy and paste this tweet:
“Everyone @EuropeanaEU supports #EuropeforCulture #SoDoI” or “Everyone @EuropeanaEU supports #EuropeforCulture #SoDoWe”(optionally @ handle of your organization)
Add any extra information you want to include
Send the tweet. It will be released during the AGM on the 6th of December.

2. Learn how to demonstrate your institution’s Impact with the new Impact Playbook

Having an impact beyond the numbers is a challenge many of us face. This year’s AGM is all about your projects. It is a chance to share knowledge about your own activities, but also to learn from others: we are looking for the best projects to create showcase studies for the Impact Framework. Are you working on a project that might have significant social or economic value? Would you like to get time, support and expertise from Europeana’s impact team to assess the impact of your project?

3. Work together on common cultural heritage issues with your peers

Fair exchange is no robbery! Create your own network by meeting up with colleagues from cultural heritage institutions, aggregators, research, education, developers, makers with whom you can discuss issues and find solutions.

The AGM will provide you with plenty of opportunities for exchanging ideas and problems, to build your own network and help others. Don’t forget: your attendance is sponsored, and your institution will benefit from your learnings! Let us know if you need some advice regarding a specific subject, or wish to be put in contact with peers facing similar issues: we will do our best to connect you.

4. Help the Europeana Network Association becoming an influential body at national and European levels

The Europeana Network Association is entering its fourth year. It needs to be even more vibrant and active to create a change in Europe’s cultural heritage arena. We already have the opportunity to influence topics from copyright reform to funding, from education to impact – but we need to band more strongly together. Being more vociferous will make us a force that really matters.

The Europeana Network Association needs to:

represent its members
cover topics that are of relevance and importance to the sector
influence how cultural heritage is perceived nationally and at European levels
support the future of Europeana

The European Year of Cultural Heritage can help us promote the need and position of digital cultural heritage in society, we need to find ways to build on it. Giving your time to these common goals will help make Europe a better place.

5. Predict next year’s trends and bring them into the Europeana business plan

Being able to see or predict trends, and acting on them at the right time helps maintain leadership and keeps an organisation or ecosystem relevant. This kind of input above and beyond the maintaining of existing systems and work-plans is needed to create the Europeana Business Plan 2018.

Bring your brain and dreams to this year’s AGM, and help make 2018 the year of change for Europeana!

Don’t miss any of this: register now!