Digital meets Culture

Join Europeana conference under the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Why 3D Matters: accelerating 3D in the common European data space for cultural heritage

The Europeana conference “Why 3D Matters: accelerating 3D in the common European data space for cultural heritage” will take place on 18 April 2023 (9h00 – 15h00 CET). The conference under the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU will be hosted by the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm (invite only) and online (open to public). This hybrid event is made possible thanks to the support of the Swedish Ministry of Culture, and is organised in collaboration with the Swedish National Heritage Board.

The conference will focus on 3D. It will explore the why and wherefores of 3D in digital cultural heritage: why 3D matters; diversity and variety of content suitable for 3D digitisation; sharing best practices, and much more. The conference aims to look into aspects, insights and inspirations on 3D as one of the main facets of the common European data space for cultural heritage and the digital transformation of the sector. If you are a digital cultural heritage professional, are interested in the common European data space for cultural heritage, or you work with and around 3D in culture, you would get the opportunity to extend your knowledge and be inspired.

To register for the meeting follow this link.

To discover more about the conference and to stay updated, check the event on Facebook.

Online, 8-10 November 2023

Physical and Mental Pathologies’ Representations in Photography and Early Cinema

On November 8th, 9th and 10th, 2023, Museum of Cinema – Tomàs Mallol Collection, Department of History and History of Art of the Universitat de Girona, the Research Unit on Early Cinema (GROC) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation have organised their 14th International Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema, which will be centered around different visions of the sick body and mind.

The purpose of the 14th International Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema is to analyze the physical and mental pathologies’ representations in cinema and photography from the period between the ending of 19th century and the beginning of the
20th, covering a period of 35 years (from 1885 to 1920).

As in the past editions, the Seminar will be divided in two parts that will be alternating.
The first part will be committed to theoretical reflection on the main topic with several lectures by prominent experts, while in the second half, the goal is that different researchers expose and debate with the attendants the results of the studies they are developing in the field of pre-cinema and/or early cinema.

Moreover, a call for papers is open and proposals are now accepted for the Seminar. The deadline is on April 30th, 2023.

To discover more about the 14th International Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema, follow this link.

To download the documentation regarding the call for papers, follow this link.

online, 28th March 2023

European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage Information & Matchmaking Day

The European Commission – DG Research & Innovation invites all stakeholders in the cltural heritage sector in a virtual event Tuesday 28 March 2023 focused on the current calls for a European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH).

With an envisaged budget of €110 million until 2025 from Horizon Europe, the ECCCH will be a unique infrastructure that will enable unprecedented transdisciplinary and large-scale collaboration between specialists. It will provide cutting-edge technologies for digitising artefacts, researching artworks, and documenting data, all of which will significantly advance and add a new digital dimension to cultural heritage research, preservation, conservation, and restoration. Moreover, it will aim to facilitate the access to advanced technologies and remove barriers for smaller and remote institutions.

This event aims to foster partnerships among research institutions, cultural heritage entities and other organisations interested in participating in proposals for the ECCCH call of 2023 (under the Work Programme 2023-2024 of Horizon Europe Cluster 2).

Information session: the morning session will feature a presentation of the call topics proposed for 2023. You will gain insights into this special funding opportunity and receive the latest information from the European Commission regarding the expectations of applicants. To access the detailed agenda and secure your spot, you can register here.
Brokerage event: the afternoon session aims at connecting prospective applicants and facilitating idea sharing. Register here to participate and share ideas with other like-minded institutions and organisations.

deadline for applicants is 31 March 2023. The report is planned for publication in September 2023.

Call for researcher – Upcoming NEMO report on climate policies for museums

The Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) is looking to hire a researcher who will conduct and compile the research for a report on climate related policies that address museums in the 27 member states of the European Union. The Study should be finalised by 1 September 2023.

Find more details in the call for proposals. Apply by sending a proposal until 31 March.

The Study will contain:

An executive summary of the research; a general introduction to the investigated climate policies and how they relate to museums generally; a compilation of climate related policies addressing museums in Europe (EU-27) on national, regional and local level; a compilation of good examples of museums from different countries implementing and utilizing climate policies in their operations; and a practical guide for museums to utilize and implement climate related policies that address them in their museum work.

the event by Scivil is organized in Brussels on 31 May 2023

Scivil Workshop: Shared challenges in citizen science

image from Scivil’s website

Scivil is a knowledge centre for citizen science in Belgium, which recently initiated a collaboration with Citizen Heritage project due to the common mission of enhancing citizen science in various domains.

In Brussels on 31st May Scivil is organizing an event to bring together three different stakeholder groups in citizen science: academia, local governments and musea, libraries or heritage institutes, to discuss common challenges they face in citizen science.

The event is composed of three workshops to discuss these challenges and come up with possible solutions together. The three parallel workshops focus on 1) museums, libraries and archives, 2) local governments, 3) supporting citizen science in your organization. The event as a learning and networking opportunity for initiators or interested parties in citizen science.

When? Wednesday 31 May 12:30 – 4:00 PM
Where? Hendrik Conscience building (King Albert II-laan 15, 1210 Brussels)
Participation price: free
Language of instruction: Dutch

Event’s webpage and registration (Dutch language): https://www.scivil.be/en/node/495

Brussels (Belgium) and online, 5th May 2023

European Tourism Day 2023

The European Tourism Day is organized on 5 May 2023 from 9:00, in the Charlemagne Building of the European Commission in Brussels and online.

This event will be an opportunity to discuss the state of tourism in the EU in the context of the green and digital transitions, to follow-up on the Tourism Transition Pathway and to share best practices for its co-implementation.

Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton will open the event and exchange with tourism stakeholders in an orientation debate entitled: ‘How to create a resilient, world-leading tourism ecosystem with innovative SMEs and thriving communities?’.

Panellists will then debate in three dedicated sessions:

Digitalisation of tourism: towards the data space for EU tourism
Green transition: sustainable tourism services and destinations
Skilling and upskilling of tourism actors

The conference will be a one-day, onsite high-level meeting with the possibility for additional audience to follow via web-streaming. The session will feature simultaneous interpretation in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

The final agenda of the European Tourism Day 2023 will soon be available on the event’s webpage.

REGISTRATION:

To attend the European Tourism Day 2023 conference onsite, you are invited to register via the link below.

https://scic.ec.europa.eu/ew/register/dgscic/European_Tourism_Day_Brussels_May_2023/e/lk/g/55940/k/

STREAMING:

Should you prefer to attend the event online, no registration is needed. You will be able to follow live on: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/events/european-tourism-day-2023-2023-05-05_en

If you wish to have additional information about:

topics and roll-out of the event, please contact: GROW-ETD@ec.europa.eu
logistics, please contact growETD2023@cecoforma.com

With the help of mixed reality, visitors and users of HoloLens 2 glasses go into the past, where they try to find their way and find all the ingredients needed to make bread.

Mixed reality educational game in the Rogatec Open-Air Museum

Text and media by Rok Kremžar, Pro Virtuala

Digitalisation of cultural heritage has been a growing trend in recent years, allowing museums and other institutions to share their collections with a wider audience. One of the latest innovations in this field is the use of mixed reality technology and HoloLens 2 smart glasses, which enable visitors to experience cultural heritage in a whole new way. One such example is the Rogatec Open-Air Museum, which has created the world’s first and only game that uses HoloLens 2 and MR technology to showcase and bring cultural heritage to life.

The museum’s interactive game takes visitors on a journey through the history of bread-making. Using the HoloLens 2 glasses, visitors can explore and solve farm tasks in a gamified experience that reveals the effort, time, and tasks that were once necessary to create bread from a grain of wheat. By completing the tasks successfully, visitors receive rewards and gain a deeper understanding of the laborious process of making bread in the past.

This innovative approach to cultural heritage offers a fun and engaging learning experience that encourages movement and coordination skills while immersing visitors in the natural surroundings of the open-air museum. The HoloLens 2 glasses are suitable for both adults and children over the age of 7, making it a perfect family activity for those interested in history and technology.

To experience this one-of-a-kind game, visitors must reserve a time slot through the museum’s website, www.rogatec.si. The glasses are available in good weather conditions and at temperatures above 10⁰ C and below 32⁰ C also with the possibility of playing in different languages (Slovenian, English, German, Italian, Croatian, Serbian and Russian). This use of HoloLens 2 technology at the Rogatec Open-Air Museum showcases the limitless possibilities of digitalisation in the cultural heritage field and offers a glimpse into the future of immersive museum experiences.

More information: https://www.rogatec.si/en/unique-experience-with-hololens-glasses/

[Show as slideshow]

CitizenHeritage multiplier event - Rotterdam, 24th March 2023

CitizenHeritage: A new participatory practice

Hosted by the Erasmus University and preceded by a variety of students’ activities, this multiplier event of the CitizenHeritage project delivered selected presentations from academic colleagues at the University as well as presentations by CitizenHeritage partners who shared with the audience recent research on participatory approaches in cultural heritage and stories from the project’s journey so far, also in the light of gaining feedback from participant students, CHIs, colleagues, and the general audience. The presentations are available in the project’s website.

23 March: Workshop sessions

24 March:

9.00-12.30 Conference

14.00-17.00 Transnational project meeting (Citizen Heritage partners only)

Event’s webpage: https://www.citizenheritage.eu/multiplier-events/rotterdam/

led by Matej Bel University, creative training for the University students was organised with a challenge to create proposals for the logo of Slovakia Mining Treasures

Training students in the creation of a visual identity for the local cultural heritage

The mining site in Spania Dolina – photo by Pietro Masi CC-BY-SA

Matej Bel University is coordinating an impressive action for territorial and tourist promotion in the INCULTUM Pilot 3 Mining Treasures of Central Slovakia in the region which has significant cultural and technical heritage related to its mining history. As part of this work, a new website was recently developed in the Pilot to offer information and other servics that promote the area and its touristic offer. In the context of this action, in the period February-march 2022 a creative training for the University students was organised together with the ICT company that is in charge of the web platform, with the scope of engaging students in a challenge to create proposals for the logo and visual identity of the website “Mining Treasures of Central Slovakia” (mining treasures = banícke poklady).

Elements of the visual identity

The main communication channel is the website, which already has a predefined font and colour palette. These two brand codes should be used in the resulting visual identity and should not be replaced by other colours and fonts.

Training for logo design: The mining treasure logo should have an information function, not a communication function. A logo is not a sentence; a logo is a period at the end of a sentence, therefore, it must meet the following criteria:

Appropriateness: the logo must be appropriate, not expressive, the less it communicates, the better. The logo must fit exactly into the identity.
Distinctiveness: The logo must be distinctive enough and clear.
Simplicity: The logo must not contain many layers that complicate it. It must be easy to read, it must work in very small and large sizes, and at the same time in a monochrome version.

The final logo design was completed together with a professional typographer. Therefore, the quality of the concept was important, not the final visual processing. Furthermore, the students received training on font and colour palette. This was important because on the website, we use a wider colour palette, primarily from a functional point of view, so that we can distinguish the categories of activities. A more concise version is sufficient for communication. For the identity, it is necessary to select from the web palette the primary colour or colours that we will use on the communication media and define how to use them. Finally, the importance of the graphic element was explained. A graphic element can be part of a logo, a pattern, or anything else that helps us unify identity applications. It is necessary to define how all these brand codes will be used on social networks, as banners, in presentations or videos. Therefore, it is necessary to show the identity in context, for example, on social media post activity, universal cover, as a title page of a printed brochure about mining treasures or gift bag.

Outcomes

Based on the training received, 31 students created small working groups and worked several weeks independently on the visual identity of the mining treasures. Their work led to the creation of 19 proposals for the visual identity, logo, and design manual of the interactive mining treasures platform. Numerous interesting and relevant proposals for the logo were received, so it was quite challenging to choose the winning logo that will represent the “Mining Treasures of Central Slovakia” (mining treasures = banícke poklady).

The winning logo design is:

The logotype consists of the abstract symbolism of mining, a hammer, which is interspersed with a cross as a sign used in the context of marking a place, a goal, etc. (treasure). The logotype as a whole thus refers to the discovery and wandering of “mining treasures”.

The winning logo design was modified by the designers into the final form that we use on the platform, social networks, in presentations, materials, and documents. The winning logo was embedded with a pin symbol, which we use to indicate activity on the platform map. The pin sign also appeared in other student logo designs.

Number of students trained: 31

Number of proposals for visual identity: 19

Final visual identity and logo design: 1

Language: Slovak

All students who participated in this training received participation certificates.

In February-March 2023 the partners had online meetings for four days, with the participating of the teachers and the students.

Update on Erasmus+ Project “From Intangible Expression to Digital Cultural Heritage”

text and images in this post courtesy of the project “From Intangible Expression to Digital Cultural Heritage”.

Erasmus+ Project “From Intangible Expression to Digital Cultural Heritage” includes partners from Turkey, Italy and Bulgaria and aims at boosting introduction of national as well as European intangible cultural heritage subjects with innovative technological methods in primary schools.

On 27th of February the team had its first meeting. One the first day of the event started with a story of Tim’s Adventures in Italy, duty of the Italian partner. During the visit to Italy the team did their activities while visiting many cultural sites.

On the second day of the meeting Turkey team had to write an article about The Caves of Stiffe, which the team visited on its fifth day in Italy. The article was read by the participants from Turkey and it was shared with the other partners.

On the third day of the meeting both Turkey and Bulgaria teams had the pleasure to write articles about the places which had been visited during the first horizontal meeting in Italy. Firstly Bulgaria team shared their article about Celebration of European Cultural Heritage, and with the help of this article an opportunity to remmeber The Celebration of European Cultural day was given, taking place in Italian school Instituto Comprensivo “B. Croce”. On this same day every group presented their culture to the others, displaying their stands presenting materials from each countries, such as traditional games, folk dances, foods, costumes and so on.

Afterwards Turkey team gave some information about the fascinating village Aielli, which they visited trying to find wall paintings by different artists with a map, like a orienteering game. In Aielli the team also visited the Astronomical Observatory tower, “Torre Delle Stelle”.

On the last day of the meeting Bulgaria team presented their article about the Italian Capital Culture 2022, Procida.

You can find out all the articles that were shared on the online meeting by following this link.