Digital meets Culture

Ars Electronica received 1,861 entries from 54 countries

STARTS Prize 2016 to “Magnetic Motion” and “Artificial Skins and Bones”

Collection Magnetic Motion / Fotocredit: Morgan O’Donovan

Ars Electronica Linz was selected to conduct the competition to determine the first two recipients of an award launched this year by the European Commission that is as prestigious as it is highly endowed. The STARTS Prize, each accompanied by a €20,000 stipend, honors innovative projects at the interface of science, technology and the arts in two categories: one for artistic research, and thus projects with the potential to influence or change the way technology is deployed, developed or perceived, and one for innovative cooperative ventures teaming up industry/technology and art/culture in ways that open up new paths for innovation.

A total of 1,861 entries from 54 countries were submitted in response to an open call that ran from February 1 to March 16, 2016.

A committee then shortlisted 30 projects, which were presented to the STARTS jurors for their consideration. Following extensive deliberations, they decided on “Magnetic Motion” by Iris van Herpen (NL) and “Artificial Skins and Bones” a project seminar staged jointly by Berlin Weißensee Academy of Art, Ottobock and Fab Lab Berlin.

Both prizewinning projects will be on display at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival (September 8-12, 2016) in Linz, where the artists as well as the respective project partners will make appearances.

Plus, a major STARTS show will highlight the next BOZAR Electronic Arts Festival (September 22-24, 2016) in Brussels. Additional STARTS presentations are scheduled for autumn in Tokyo and London.

Artificial Skins and Bones / Visible Strength / Lisa Stohn and Jhu-Ting Yang / Fotocredit: Bernardo Aviles-Busch

Science + Technology + Arts = STARTS

“In the Digital Age, art and engineering no longer represent mutually contradictory ways of thinking,” maintains G.H. Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. Science, technology and the arts (STARTS for short) constitute a nexus at which insightful observers have identified extraordinarily high potential for innovation. Accordingly, Commissioner Oettinger foresees digital transformations in industry, culture and society providing the main impetus for interdisciplinary and inter-genre collaboration when innovation is the desired result. Moreover, he emphasizes that the link-up of technology and artistic practice is a win-win situation for both European innovation policymaking as well as the world of art, which is precisely why STARTS focuses on both artistic relevance and a project’s significance/utility for industry and society. In this context, Commissioner Oettinger emphasizes that this should by no means be construed as restricting artistic latitude for experimentation. This is said to be utterly counterproductive since creativity on the part of artists is, after all, first and foremost an upshot of their independence.

Ars Electronica Linz Meets STARTS

Since 1979, Ars Electronica has been exploring the multifarious impacts that digitization and networking are making on our world. In going about this, art, technology and society are never scrutinized as discrete domains; instead, they’re considered as interrelated elements of a unified vision. Ars Electronica’s process of artistic reflection on explosive developments, its ongoing inquiry into alternative future scenarios and the framework circumstances, strategies and protagonists necessary for their emergence, as well as the ways and means inherent in all of these activities to encourage people to get actively involved in configuring our shared future are what make Ars Electronica the ideal partner of the STARTS program. The Ars Electronica Festival, a platform and showcase that has been making a name for itself worldwide since 1979, the Prix Ars Electronica competition that has honored excellence in media art annually since 1987, the Ars Electronica Center that premiered in 1996 as a Museum of the Future and educational facility, the Ars Electronica Futurelab founded the same year as an in-house R&D lab/atelier, and Ars Electronica Solutions, the division responsible for an impressive array of joint ventures with partners in industry and commerce, also contribute mightily to this effort.

See the full information: http://www.aec.at/press/en/2016/06/23/starts2016/

Brussels (Belgium), 6th July 2016

Rethinking Data Protection and Privacy in Europe: Shaping the European Digital Future

In January 2015, Europe’s data industry together with the European Commission committed to invest €2.5 billion in a public-private partnership (PPP) that aims at accelerating the development of Europe’s data-driven economy.

Data represents a key element for research, technological innovations and economic development. It covers various topics, ranging from transport and energy to healthcare and social issues, and can empower European citizens and businesses to fully seize the opportunities of the digital environment. Efficient flow of data is therefore pivotal to move forward and build a European digital single market. However, boosting the potential of the digital market can only be accomplished if people can trust the way their personal data is being used and if clear data protection standards are put in place.

This international symposium will examine the latest developments on data protection rules discussed at EU level. It will also explore new ways to encourage innovation by implementing one common data protection standard for businesses in Europe. Furthermore, the event will address the recurring concern on the balance between privacy and security as well as the issue regarding customers’ control over personal data.

It also provides an invaluable opportunity for key stakeholders within the public and private sector to explore the measures that are being taken to reduce territorial fragmentation of data protection laws and move towards a harmonised EU digital single market. The symposium will support the exchange of ideas and encourage delegates to engage in thought-provoking topical debate with local and regional practitioners and policy makers at EU level.

Delegates will also:

Explore new developments on Data Protection Regulation in Europe
Discuss unifying data protection rules for European businesses
Consider ways to achieve the right balance between privacy and security
Assess consumers’ rights and trust regarding the protection of personal data

Date: Wednesday 6th July 2016
Time: 10:00am – 4:30pm
Venue: Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre, Brussels

Key speakers:

Michele Voznick
Policy Officer, Directorate-General Justice and Consumers, Data Protection Unit
European Commission

Dr. Els De Busser
Lecturer – Law – Faculty of Public Management, Law & Safety, Senior Researcher – Cyber Security – Faculty IT & Design The Hague University of Applied Sciences

Professor David Wallom
Associate Professor and Associate Director University of Oxford eResearch Centre

Christoph Luykx
Director, Government Relations EMEA CA Technologies

Boris Wojtan
Director of Privacy GSMA

Jos Dumortier
ICT Lawyer – Honorary Professor ICT Law time.lex

Zoe Kardasiadou
Seconded National Expert, Freedoms and Justice Department
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Alexander Whalen
Senior Policy Manager Digital Europe

Ero Balsa
Privacy Researcher COSIC – KU Leuven

Christopher Stacey
Co-Director Unlock

Download the Flyer with the Agenda (PDF, 423 Kb)

Registration module (.docx 30 Kb) or please click here

Inquiries: +44 (0)20 3137 8630

www.publicpolicyexchange.co.uk

A conference dedicated to the analysis of present scenarios and vision of future for cultural heritage in 10 years.

MUSEUM: VISION 2026 – interesting workshop in Turin

On 16-17 June 2016, in Turin in the beautiful premises of Palazzo Madama, the Turin Museums Foundation in collaboration with Singularity University Geneva, organized a conference dedicated to the analysis of present scenarios and vision of future for cultural heritage in 10 years.

Museum Vision 2026 is a workshop, a platform to open a window onto the future of
museum experiences and their straight influence on social and economic
perspectives with the aim to identify a series of museum experiences in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. Museums in Italy are facing profound changes, especially at the intersection between art and science.

The activities of the conference were developed in two days:
1. INTRODUCTION and FUTURE SCENARIOS: exponentially growing technologies
2. TRENDSWATCH: the convergence of communications, technology and science
3. MAKERS: artisans beyond digital
4. CROWD: the museum as a community service
5. CREATIVE LAB: activities, trends and scenarios for the museum of the future
6. RESULTS: debriefing and final paper

Speakers included:
PATRIZIA ASPRONI – President, Fondazione Torino Musei – Welcome message/Why “Museum:Vision 2026”
NICOLETTA IACOBACCI – Director, SingularityU Geneva –Ten-years scenarios “Forecast 2026” and work program
DALE HERIGSTAD –Advanced Interaction Consultant
CHLOE JARRY –Interactive digital publisher
GIOVANNI DE NIEDERHAUSERN – Chief operating officer Carlo Ratti Associati
MARCELA SABINO – Museu do Amanhã – Rio de Janeiro – Case study: “What is the
tomorrow we are talking about”
GIANMARCO VERUGGIO Honorary President – Scuola di Robotica, Director of Research CNR-IEIIT.
IAN BRUNSWICK, Science Gallery International
MARIO NANNI – President Viabizzuno
MARIA GRAZIA MATTEI – Founder Meet the Media Guru
JAMES DAVIS – Head Of Country Operations, Google Cultural Institute

See the agenda HERE

Particularly interesting was the welcome message by Patrizia Asproni, discussing the growing need of changing the traditional approaches of museums as memory institutions to a new concept of user-generated experience, audience participation and co-creation in the enjoiment of cultural heritage, leveraging on the new technologies to re-organize the museal experience and its pace: “how to connect what is kept inside [the museums] with the world outside museums and with the acceleration of relations and communications flowing through it? Is the fate of the museums to keep the pace or to reaffirm their status as places of meditation and slowness? Finally, is the one with technology a mortal embrace that implies a complete surrender of the “fully human” experience of the visit, or will it be a tool for better enjoyment and enhancement [of cultural heritage]?” (text of the speech available in full, Italian language, here)

The audience was selected amongst professionals in the field of culture and museums; including communicators and journalists, authorities of IT and technology, students and young entrepreneurs.

Marie Curie European Fellowship at Coventry University

Creative Artist/ Coder to join a Transciplinary Dance Research Project

The Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University seeks a highly motivated creative artist/ coder to join a unique trans-disciplinary team exploring the artistic, scholarly and scientific potential of choreographic and dance-related data. The opportunity will be supported by an application to the Marie Curie European Fellowship. The Marie Curie European Fellowships are open to individual researchers coming to Europe from any country in the world or moving within Europe. The applicant should have their doctoral degree or at least four years’ full-time research experience by the time of the call deadline. The Fellowship lasts from one to two years.

MORE ABOUT C-DARE: http://c-dare.co.uk

MORE ABOUT MARIE CURIE: http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/about-msca/actions/if/index_en.htm

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST DEADLINE: 24 June 2016

CONTEXT AND POSITION: The Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University aims to build on over fifteen years experience its Senior Researchers have with the development of new interdisciplinary approaches to the documentation, digitisation and dissemination of the creative practices of internationally renowned choreographers and dance companies. These projects include the Siobhan Davies Digital Archive, Wayne McGregor’s Choreographic Language Agent, Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced by William Forsythe, Inside Movement Knowledge and Capturing Intention with Emio Greco | PC and the Motion Bank project of The Forsythe Company. (1) The cumulative result of these digital dance projects, manifesting in the form of creative software tools, interactive installations and websites, has had wide impact in many areas including dance education and research, artistic practice, cultural heritage and creative industry. These projects have also spawned a global network of individuals, institutions and organisations across the cultural, education and industry sectors.

A key and as yet underexploited result of these projects exists in the large amount of digital dance data now available as a potential resource for computational study. A wide range of dance related datasets exist from small to large collections with heterogeneous data types including 2D digital video, 3D motion capture data, annotated timelines, silhouettes, pathway data, scans, etc. In addition to the collections related to the projects referred to above, new dance related datasets are continuously emerging including the Pina Bausch Digital Archive and the on-line publication of historically key media libraries of important dance venues such as Tanzquartier Wien. Additionally, a small suite of open software systems for recording and data management, annotation and on-line publication has been created in the frame of the Motion Bank project. C-DaRE intends to establish a new trans-disciplinary research environment to build on these previous, on-going and new projects; utilising its global networks to lead the way in dance data-driven artistic, scientific and scholarly research.

Some of the initial questions to be asked are about the relationships between these very diverse data sets. Where are the overlaps of information? What can be discovered to form the basis for more advanced questions? What can be done with these datasets? Can lightweight artistic coding tools be used to probe the specificity of the material? Can specific viewers be built for different kinds of data that is sensitive to the material? What happens in digitising dance, in other words, what are the meta-theoretical questions corresponding to the cultural value of choreography and dance? How does the background of these projects and extensive documentation inform the probing of the data? And how can future dance recordings be informed by what is discovered? How can a variety of artistic, scholarly and scientific outcomes best be achieved?

With this framework in mind, C-DaRE wishes to apply for a Mare Curie European Fellowship to host a Fellow with a combined artistic and scientific practice, who specialises in a wide range of technologies such as data analysis and visualisation, machine learning, computer vision, creative tools such as Processing, openFrameworks or VVVV, and who is keen to be part of this trans-disciplinary research environment for one to two years.

Please send expressions of interest by 24 June 2016 to both:

Scott deLahunta scott@motionbank.org

Florian Jenett florian@motionbank.org

(1)

http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/

http://openendedgroup.com/artworks/cla.html

http://synchronousobjects.osu.edu/

http://insidemovementknowledge.net/

http://motionbank.org/

http://choreographiccoding.org/

The University of Michigan Library announces the publication of a resource dedicated to helping understand the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) and implement similar copyright review projects.

Finding the Public Domain Toolkit: Identifying Items Not Subject to Copyright

13 June 2016 – The University of Michigan Library announces the publication of Finding the Public Domain: Copyright Review Management System Toolkit, a resource dedicated to helping others understand the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) and implement similar copyright review projects.

Working over a span of nearly eight years, with generous support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the University of Michigan Library led a cooperative effort of nineteen partner research libraries to identify books in the public domain in the HathiTrust Digital Library. That effort, CRMS, has successfully performed over 330,000 copyright determinations for U.S. published volumes and over 180,000 determinations for volumes published in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Melissa Levine, CRMS Principal Investigator and Lead Copyright Officer at the University of Michigan Library, recommends the Toolkit as “a significant and vital resource for more fully realizing the promise of the public domain.”

Mike Furlough, Executive Director of HathiTrust said that, “cooperative work has been the key to HathiTrust’s success, and there is no better example of this than the CRMS project. CRMS has enriched our understanding of the public domain. Users of the Toolkit will see that it has developed a methodology for copyright investigations that is as legally sound as it is innovative.”

The CRMS Toolkit, which provides a window into the collaboration, research methods and technology behind CRMS, aims to share this transformative activity broadly. The Toolkit is available for free as an e-book. Print copies, offered for sale on a cost recovery basis, are available through Amazon.

Last month, the CRMS project received the American Library Association’s 2016 L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award. For the ALA announcement, Kenny Crews, a former winner of the Patterson award and attorney and Professor of Law at Columbia University, remarked that the CRMS workflow “integrates the potential of research methods, technology, law, and transformed library services.” Sharon Farb, UCLA associate university librarian, lauded the importance of the CRMS “collaborative community based approach” to copyright review and expanding awareness of the public domain. Peter Hirtle of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, said of the CRMS project that he was “hard pressed to think of a group that has done more to assist librarians in identifying, understanding, and expanding the public domain.”

Publication of the Toolkit was made possible through close collaboration with Michigan Publishing Services, a department of the University of Michigan Library, which offers a suite of services and expertise that increase the visibility, reach, and impact of scholarship originating at the University of Michigan and beyond.

Learn more about CRMS.

For more information contact Melissa Smith Levine at mslevine@umich.edu

OPF webinar, 14 June 2016, 14:30 CEST

Pre Commercial Procurement for the long-term Preservation of Digital Cultural Heritage

Outline

Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) is a competition-like method designed to steer the development of innovative solutions towards concrete public sector needs. These solutions are developed by external suppliers that are awarded a contract through a phased open procurement process. In the last years, the PCP instrument is becoming more and more popular within the public sector and the European Union increased support for groups of public procurers working together on joint PCPs under Horizon 2020.

PREFORMA is a PCP project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme to work on one of the main challenges that memory institutions are facing nowadays: the long-term preservation of digital data. In particular, the project offers memory institutions an open source conformance checker that controls if a file complies with the standard specifications and with the acceptance criteria of the institutions, thus giving them full control of the process of conformity testing of files to be created, migrated and ingested into archives. This software development is carried out in a collaborative environment with memory institutions and experts. Aim of the webinar is to present the first results of the project and to invite the wider digital preservation community – open source community, developers, standardization bodies and memory institutions – to participate in this process.

For more information about the PREFORMA project visit: www.preforma-project.eu

Presentations

Background and context, Börje Justrell (PREFORMA Project Coordinator): download PDF
The PCP/PPI instrument and how it is implemented in PREFORMA, Antonella Fresa (PREFORMA Technical Coordinator): download PDF
The PREFORMA Challenge, Bert Lemmens (Responsible of the Requirements Phase in PREFORMA): download PDF
How to contribute and next appointments, Claudio Prandoni (PREFORMA Communication Coordinator): download PDF

Video Recording

http://www.preforma-project.eu/opf-webinar.html

The report looks back on the activities and achievements undertaken by the Foundation over the past two years.

Open Preservation Foundation publishes Annual Report

The 2014-2016 Annual Report has been published by Open Preservation Foundation.

The Open Preservation Foundation sustains technology and knowledge for the long-term management of digital cultural heritage. The report looks back on the activities and achievements undertaken by the Foundation over the past two years. Highlights include:

Launch of strategic plan 2015-18, new name, brand and website
New membership and software supporter model
Technology: stewardship and sustainability
Knowledge: webinars and interest groups
New Alliances and community contributions
Project summaries
An introduction to the year ahead

veraPDF, one of the three open source projects funded in the framework in PREFORMA, is considered “a crucial technical success by providing the definitive implementation of a PDF/A validation tool, which was released in version 0.14 earlier this year. Such a tool is eagerly awaited by organisations around the world and will certainly have a huge impact in the preservation community and beyond. The project also supports important on-going collaboration with the PDF Association.” (Ross King, Austrian Institute of Technology, Chair of the Board of Directors of OPF).

The report is freely available HERE.

New York City (USA), 14-15 November 2016

Museum Next conference in NYC

MuseumNext is a global conference on the future of museums. Since 2009 it has acted as a platform for showcasing best practice today to shine a light on the museum of tomorrow.

MuseumNext NYC will take place on 14-15 November 2016 with two days of curated presentations on the theme of Transformation.

This conference will bring together the disrupters and the change-makers, focusing on those who are transforming museums through action rather than theory.

The call for papers was open until the end of June.

Themes:

Transforming Lives – How can museums have a positive social impact on the communities that they serve, changing lives, improving cities and acting as catalysts for change.
Transforming Practices – How is best practice evolving to better meet the needs of a rapidly changing world, we are interested in examples of innovative practice from across the museum.
Transforming Places – How are museums transforming their spaces to meet the needs of their audiences and how are they working with their audiences and external experts to achieve this.

Conference website: http://www.museumnext.com/conference/museum_conference_usa/

Limassol (Cyprus), 31 October - 5 November 2016; extended deadline for submission: 30 July 2016

EuroMed 2016: Call for Papers

A successful decade of European – Mediterranean Conferences on Cultural Heritage Documentation, Preservation and Protection (EuroMed): 2006 – 2016

You are kindly invited to submit a paper to the EuroMed 2016 conference which will provide an opportunity to exchange research results, opinions, experiences and proposals on the best practice and hi-tech tools from Information and Communications Technology to document, preserve, manage and communicate Cultural Heritage (CH). This event will be supported by a scientific committee which consists of almost 100 renowned professionals in the area of CH for a blind peer review of all submitted papers.

www.euromed2016.eu

NEW Call for papers and submission: http://www.euromed2016.eu/index.php/paper-submission

Or download it HERE in PDF

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 30th JULY

The 6th EuroMed2016 brings together researchers, policy makers, professionals and practitioners to explore some of the more pressing issues concerning cultural heritage today. In particular, the main goal of the conference is to focus on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, the use of cutting edge technologies for the protection, restoration, preservation, massive digitalization, documentation and presentation of the CH content. At the same time, the event is intended to cover topics of research ready for exploitation, demonstrating the acceptability of new sustainable approaches and new technologies by the user community, SME’s, owners, managers and conservators of cultural patrimony.

The Event includes the following Workshops – Open to all participants:

The 2nd International Workshop on ICT for the Preservation and Transmission of Intangible Cultural Heritage,
The 3rd International Workshop on 3D Research Challenges in Cultural Heritage,
The 1st International Workshop on Virtual Reality, Gamification and Cultural Heritage
Information and Communication Technologies for Cultural Heritage Applications (InCuTe4CH)
Re-Thinking Management and Valorization of Middle East Cultural Heritage in the Post-War period: Where Disasters Turns to Opportunity, Development and Growth

The new resource was presented at Alcantara International Festival of Performative Arts.

Transmedia Knowledge-Base for Performing Arts, official launch in Lisbon

The Knowledge-Base for performing arts (TKB) is a dynamic and open-ended resource to support the creation and documentation of contemporary performances in the format of a digital “archive of processes”.

It has been recently presented at the important Alkantara International Festival of Performative Arts.

The aim is to gradually compile in an interactive “Transmedia Knowledge-Base” the newest creations of national and international choreographers, directors and performers. It was created for all artists interested in sharing their creative processes, working methods or finished pieces in the performing arts field.

In the Knowledge-Base each artist can upload multimedia materials in an autonomous and self-curatorial way and also chose how they want to appear connected with other artists by indexing tags to their own material.

TKB is coordinated by Carla Fernandes and is hosted by FCSH at NOVA, with the collaboration of FCT-UNL and was funded by Fundação da Ciência e Tecnologia.

Carla Fernandes and FCSH are also partners of the Europeana Space project with the Dance Pilot.

http://www.alkantarafestival.pt/en/meeting-point/knowledge-base-for-performing-arts/