Digital meets Culture

The Europeana Aggregators Forum event which took place in The Hague on 18-19 October 2022 was the perfect occasion to present the new EUreka3D project

Announcing upcoming project for capacity building in 3D digitization

EUreka3D is a project funded by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union, to support the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector, by offering capacity building and training, and new services, to Cultural Heritage Institutions facing the challenge of advancing in the digitization effort, especially in 3D.

The project was briefly presented to colleague institutions, partners and Europeana aggregators, by the Project Coordinator Antonella Fresa, vice president of Photoconsortium.

View and download the presentation (PDF, 740 Kb)

In this article, it is presented a case study by Donato Maniello (Studio Glowarp, Academy of Fines Arts-Naples, Italy, multimedia contents) and Valeria Amoretti (Parco Archeologico di Pompei, storytelling).

A journey into the Hades in the Hypogeum of Cerberus: The Spatial Augmented Reality experience

Text and images by Donato Maniello (Studio Glowarp, Academy of Fines Arts-Naples, Italy, multimedia contents)

This work discussion is a hypothesis of reconstruction of the missing part of the frieze of the Hypogeum of Cerberus located in Canosa di Puglia (Bt), Italy. The narration is considered difficult because of the particular fragility of the pigments, by the strong visual fragmentation or by the complete lack of pigments. This work wants to show the potentialities of SAR (Spatial Augmented Reality) technology in order to make visible the ancient polychromies, thus providing interesting perspectives of use for video mapping.

In recent years, the academics have always been more and more interested into the study of the polychromies of ancient works and aware of their value. However, the audience who visits the museums it’s not aware of it, ignoring the fact that the white marble of the statues and buildings it’s not what we can call a stylistic choice but evidence of the flowing time. The collective imagination that has always considered white as the supreme colour of the ancient sculpture needs now to re-considerate its position facing with an interdisciplinary approach, that allows to revaluate and better appreciate the pieces of the ancient sculpture and its decorations, being aware of the importance that the colour had in that times. It is therefore important to use forms of communication that make possible to highlight the colour appearance of the original works in the eyes of the final users, pieces kept into our museums object of precise studies.

[Show as slideshow]

It is important to pay attention to the new communication media that have the clear role of showing the final outcomes of the research to the public, a research carried out by more sophisticated means. SAR is one of the architectural technologies that lends itself best to such communication experimentations in archaeological and museum settings. The reasons of its fortune can be ascribe to its relative user-friendliness and the fact that can be used by a group, an audience. The archaeological and museum assets are well suited to the use of this technology because it allows to reconstruct missing fragments or original colours by overlapping the real and virtual model through the use of matching techniques. SAR technical possibilities and its applications into archaeological and museum fields create new scenarios for the scholars because it is particularly suitable as support for restoration project and digital anastylosis and permits to recreate the original colours using different methods of research. The Glowarp Studio has long since set the goal of using SAR into archaeological and museum settings for communicative purposes and as a mean to enhance the finds or “reconstructing the absence” by creating ad hoc multimedia contents.

Link: https://www.glowarp.com/arim_96_ipogeo_cerbero.html

Viaggio nell’Ade: racconti di luce sull’Ipogeo del Cerbero (trailer). from Studio Glowarp / www.glowarp.com on Vimeo.

H2020 project ILUCIDARE releases Policy Recommendations to promote heritage as a source for innovation and cooperations

Cultural Heritage to Innovate and to Stimulate International Cooperation

ILUCIDARE was a three-year EU-funded H2020 project aimed at establishing an international network promoting heritage as a resource for innovation and in international relations through a diversity of collaborative activities.

The policy recommendations resulting from the project’s activities are now available. As a key project partner KEA was task leader on the drafting of this document.

The recommendations highlight the importance of developing a new understanding on the value of cultural heritage by acknowledging its contribution to social innovation, citizens’ engagement to a sustainable future, creative entrepreneurship and international cooperation promoting mutual understanding. The document stresses the importance of building capacity to enable better cooperation between heritage stakeholders and policy makers. It proposes ways for heritage stakeholders to influence regulatory and policy frameworks for a more holistic and sustainable use of cultural resources.

Read the ILUCIDARE policy recommendations here.

To discover more about the project and its deliverables, please consult the project website: http://ilucidare.eu/

online, 11th November 2022

Digital transformation in the Data Space – symposium

A discussion event and learning opportunity in the morning of 11 November 2022 to explore challenges and opportunities around data collection, and how data can support the digital transformation of cultural heritage institutions.

The upcoming Europeana online symposium during the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU offers an opportunity to join members of the European Commission’s Expert Group on a common European data space for cultural heritage, as well as relevant representatives from ministries of culture and cultural heritage institutions, to discover and discuss how data collection can support digital transformation in our sector.

Please find the draft programme here.

For more information and to register: https://pro.europeana.eu/event/digital-transformation-in-the-data-space-measurement-and-assessment

organized by Geopark South Funen Archipelago, the session discussed common challenges and different solutions in the sustainable development of territories

INCULTUM in Denmark: networking with stakeholders

screenshot from https://www.geoparkoehavet.dk/

INCULTUM collaboration partner Geopark South Funen Archipelago organized on October 14 2022 a workshop focused on “Co-design of Geotourism” with a number of stakeholders in the territory.

In the workshop, prof. Carsten Humlebæk (Copenhagen Business School) was invited to present the work ongoing in the project and particularly in the innovations explored in the INCULTUM Pilots.

Although still mid-term in the project and thus not completely ready yet for the market, the INCULTUM innovations were throughoutly presented, among which the payment-for-services contract that the pilot in the Altiplano de Granada is developing.

There are differences between Geopark projects and INCULTUM but also many overlaps, since Geopark-designation is often used to foster sustainable economic, social and cultural development that will make it possible for communities to keep on living in the area. A lot of the solutions/innovations of INCULTUM Pilots are therefore of interest to various stakeholders of the Geopark, since they struggle with similar problems.

Geopark South Funen Archipelago: https://www.geoparkoehavet.com/

case studies of the I CULTUM Pilots offer many points of reflections for students interested in cultural and tourism management

INCULTUM presented at Master of Intercultural Market Studies

img. sourced from Copenhagen Business School website

INCULTUM was presented by prof. Carsten Humlebæk at the new Master students of Intercultural Market Studies at Copenhagen University, in the introduction meeting held in late August 2022.

At the informative meeting, ca. 35 students learned about INCULTUM research and activity, with the scope of getting them interested in the possibility of writing their thesis in collaboration with INCULTUM. The Master on Intercultural Market Studies is focused on strategic planning of marketing processes in companies and institutions, and how such processes relate to the resources, environment surroundings and the current market situation the organization is immersed in.

Prague and online, 14-17 November 2022

EOSC European Open Science Cloud symposium

Last year, the Council of the European Union defined the specific policy priorities of 2022-2024 for the establishment of the New European Research Area (ERA) as a “researchers-centred, value-based, excellence as well as impact-driven area, in which researchers, knowledge and technology are supported and can circulate freely.”

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) was highlighted as the key to facilitate the creation of ”a truly functioning internal market for knowledge” by enabling the open sharing of knowledge and the re-use of research outputs. By being the data space for science, research and innovation, EOSC is therefore the essential facilitator for the realisation of the European Data Strategy.

The EOSC Symposium is the main EOSC annual event and takes place this year in Prague, Czech Republic, from 14th-17th November 2022 as part of the calendar of events of the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU. This coincides with the Second EOSC Tripartite Event on the 15th of November 2022.

Over 500 stakeholders from ministries, policy makers, research organisations, service providers, research infrastructures and research communities across Europe and beyond are expected to attend the Symposium to reflect on the EOSC key achievements and strategic challenges, and to identify priorities and concrete actions at the European, national, and institutional level to speed up EOSC implementation.

Full programme available HERE: https://events.eoscfuture.eu/symposium2022/programme

The plenary sessions will be live streamed.

Registration until 2 November: https://events.eoscfuture.eu/symposium2022/begin

the consultation is open until 2 November 2022 - your feedback will influence the further development of the Cloud and its services.

European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH) – Stakeholders Survey

Zahra Ibrahem, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Stakeholders Consultation >>> SURVEY

What is “the Cloud”?
The European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage, the Cloud, is a European Union initiative for a digital infrastructure that will connect cultural heritage institutions and professionals across the EU and develop specific digital tools for this sector.

The Cloud will join and mutually re-inforce other past and future European initiatives such as Europeana or the common European Dataspace for Cultural Heritage.

A Cloud for what?
The Cloud will help all cultural heritage institutions, of all sizes and types, to work with their digital objects more visibly, more interconnected, more harmonized and more informed, to become successful players in the digital realm. It will unlock the untapped potential of the sector by organizing joint exhibitions, digitizing artefacts, researching artworks, and documenting data thus strengthening the digital dimension to cultural heritage preservation, conservation, and restoration as well as management and reach out.

This will enable unprecedented transdisciplinary and large-scale collaboration between specialists, who, by remotely connecting to this platform, will be able to work in a highly professional digital working space using state of the art tools independent from their location and time.

The Cloud will also help generate new income for the cultural heritage institutions by opening new opportunities for marketing and commercialization, in the particular of the digital dimension of the cultural heritage sector.

How did we get here?

The European Commission launched this initiative on the request of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.

Eight independent renowned experts in the field of cultural heritage were commissioned to carry out an ex-ante impact assessment that laid the basis for the concept of this initiative by helping identify the existing technological solutions in the field.
Please, find here all the details on Report on a European collaborative cloud for cultural heritage: https://op.europa.eu/s/w4bg

We want to hear your voice!

By answering this questionnaire, you will help us to better focus on your needs and prioritize research on the tools you would like at your disposal to be developed for the Cloud.

Your feedback will influence the further development of the Cloud and its services.

Stakeholders Consultation >>> SURVEY

This activity in the context of CitizenHeritage aimed at enaging university students with online tools and practice for cultural heritage collections and thus sourcing user requirements for ICT at the service of citizen science

Computer science workshops and citizen science case study at NTUA

CitizenHeritage promotes participative approaches to support citizen science and citizen participation in cultural heritage, with a focus on involving university students with cultural heritage projects. This work goes in the direction of growing in higher education institutions teaching and learning programmes of new and digital skills for the cultural professionals of tomorrow.

In this context, partner NTUA the National Technical University of Athens conducted a citizen science case study that employed crowdsourcing techniques as part of a homework assignment involving higher education students of computer science.

Students were engaged in an online campaign in the form of a challenge workshop, with the aim to enrich the metadata associated with a selection of music tracks retrieved from the Europeana digital library. Making use of a platform that supports crowdsourcing in the cultural heritage domain, students were asked to listen to music tracks and annotate them along three main categories, including emotion, genre, and instruments.

View the campaign: https://crowdheritage.eu/en/music-citizen

The results of the campaign were further analyzed and exploited by students through the use of semantic web technologies, in order to construct a knowledge graph and an ontology, extract additional knowledge, and make music recommendations. In total, 98 students participated in the campaign, contributing over 8300 tags concerning 854 tracks.

The process also led to the creation of an openly available annotated dataset, which can be useful for music tagging models. The outcomes of the campaign and the feedback collected via an online questionnaire allowed us to draw useful insights about the challenges and benefits of incorporating crowdsourcing techniques in computer science curricula and the educational gains for students.

Rosa Cisneros from C-DARE Coventry University presented the work done in WEAVE about Romani cultural heritage in Europeana

WEAVE presented at conference in Wales about GRT community inclusion

On 24th October, the Romani Cultural & Arts Company (RCAC) and the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) organized a conference to mark the launch of a new report titled Sites of Inclusion: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Participation in the Arts Sector of Wales, which comprises new research conducted by the RCAC, commissioned by ACW.

This new study offers insight into the level of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller participation and inclusion within the Arts Sector of Wales with the aim of optimising opportunities for engagement with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller audiences, artists and arts professionals. This research also supports The Welsh Government’s goal to achieve an Anti-Racist Wales by 2030 through their Race Equality Action Plan.

The conference featured speakers and academics from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and follows in the footsteps of The Romani Cultural & Arts Company’s ground-breaking community engagement work to date. The Sites of Inclusion report expands the work of the Romani Cultural & Arts Company by finding new ways to engage Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities with the wider public in ongoing dialogue about the ways in which art continues to inform our lives today.

On the occasion of the conference, Rosa Cisneros from C-DARE Coventry University presented the work done in WEAVE for inclusion of Romani cultural heritage in Europeana, the Europeana digital library.

As side events of the conference, two Gypsy Maker 5 events were organized in association with g39 and Ballet Cymru. These comprise an evening of artists’ talks at g39 from 7 pm to 9 pm on the evening of October 24^th, plus an afternoon of dance talks at Ballet Cymru on October 25^th from 12.30 pm to 3pm. Both events featured artists from the RCAC’s 2022 Gypsy Maker 5 exhibition tour.