Digital meets Culture

The Polish contribution to the Small Towns Heritage Pilot of REACH Project

“The Strategic Use of Heritage Representations: The Small Towns of Podlasie Province”

Last May the open-access peer-reviewed international academic journal “Urbanities” published the result of the Polish case study carried on in the framework of the Small Towns Heritage Pilot of REACH Project. The article was written by Luďa Klusáková(Charles University, Czech Republic) Halina Parafianowicz and Marlena Brzozowska (Białystok University, Poland).

The article stems from a project researching good practices in the use and re-use by small towns of their cultural heritage. Heritage representations and related participative activities may contribute to urban renaissance, or completely fail if there are no favourable conditions. The selected case of Podlasie Voivodship, a Polish province on the border with Lithuania and Belorussia, represents a peripheral border region. Its settlement is to quite a large extent represented by small towns on the edge of the countryside. To test our hypothesis that towns in border regions across Europe use heritage in their development strategies and that these are comparable through the perspective of the use and reuse of the heritage, the representations of selected settlements were analysed: Tykocin, Supraśl, Hajnówka with Białowieża and Wysokie Mazowieckie. The authors are historians, and combine contextualization with observation of selected cases inspired by visual ethnography. In addition, the general public’s understanding of heritage has been explored through the analysis of 248 questionnaires answered by a focus group of secondary school students from Wysokie Mazowieckie. The findings presented in the article contribute to the debate on the role of Creatives in towns from the historian’s perspective
Link to the entire article:http://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/6-Luda-Klus%C3%A1kov%C3%A1-et-al.pdf
Link to Urbanities Journal:http://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/May-2019.pdf

Experiences and deductions from MEMOLAB and REACH projects

“The legal framework of cultural landscapes in Andalusia (Spain): limits and possibilities of public participation from an archaeological perspective”

The independent European journal of post classical archaeologies PCA recently published an article facing the theme of the participation on cultural landscape.
The contribution was given by Dott. L. Delgado Anés and Prof. J.M. Martín Civantos from the University of Granada, both engaged for years in projects promoting forms of participation for the protection and recovery of the heritage of landscapes. Indeed, as explained by the authors in the introduction of the article, “the choice of this subject stems from the accumulation of experiences
gathered during the development of two research projects: MEMOLA (www.memolaproject.eu) and more recently REACH (www.reach-culture.eu).
Intention of the article is to ascertain how the management and participation in cultural landscapes are conducted and to identify in which conceptual and normative contexts archaeologists should act in their approach to putting into practice a participatory model. The paper advances that this cannot be initiated uniquely from archaeological, or even heritage or cultural, practices. Environmental factors and natural values are essential and have often prevailed over more integrated conceptions of coevolutionary processes between humans and the environment.
Read the entire article:
PCA 9_Delgado-Civantos

21 May 2019, Gandhi Secondary School Pécs, (Hungary)

REACH Local Encounter: “Intangible Roma cultural heritage in Hungary – Communities and participation”

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The 21th May a local encounter organized by Elte University, task leader of Minority Heritage Pilot, was held at the Gandhi Secondary School, located in Pécs; this is the first secondary school in Europe, devoted to preparing young Roma for higher education and teaches Roma history and culture as well as Beash and Romani languages.

The aim is to produce future Roma intellectuals committed to the cause of the Roma and the continuation of Roma language and culture.
In 2017, the pedagogic method for the preservation of the Gipsy/Romani intangible cultural heritage was selected as element of the national register of best safeguarding practices in Hungary.

The three hungarian organisations, the Hungarian and Gipsy Dance Traditions of Nagyecsed (part of the national inventory of ICH, since 2017), the Gandhi Secondary School and the Talentum Art School (both selected on the national register of best safeguarding practices in Hungary with their educational programs) attended the event to present their history and their definition of Roma cultural heritage.
The discussion highlighted the importance of heritage communities and the active participation and involvement of the local communities; it raised the question of authenticity of the Roma culture and the danger of exoticising certain cultural traditions as well as danger of xenophobic attitude of the majority society.
The debate concerned a lot of pertinent issues, such as the position of the communities, their activity and their involvement in the case of Hungarian Roma, where poverty and disadvantageous social status may very much balk the participation in cultural activities.

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Also the lunch time was an opportunity to deepen the Roma culture: the Kóstolda Roma House Restaurant is a great local example of Roma entrepreneurship where the visitors may discover authentic Roma cuisine, while the restaurant also attempts to break down the discrimination and prejudice against their ethnic group through fostering communication

During the event there was a small exhibition presenting photos and objects collected from the past.

[Show as slideshow]

Application materials must be sent by the 30rd of June to Kyberteatro.it

“THE WONDERS OF POSSIBLE”, open call for artists

In November 2019, Kyber Teatro organises in Cagliari (Italy) the 6th Edition of the International Theatre, Art and New Technologies Festival called
“Le Meraviglie del Possibile”.

LMDP Festival is the first of this kind in the whole Italy. Its aim is to promote the interrelation between artistic and technological languages.

Kyber Teatro – spin off of L’Aquilone di Viviana (theatre and new technologies company, LMDP Festival creator and manager), addresses to Italian and International artists an Open Call to submit their projects about “Interaction between arts and technology”.

Who can attend:

The participation is open to artists of every nationality, working individually or in a group.

Eligible projects:

• Theatrical plays, performances.

• Installations that explore and realize the interaction between artwork, exhibition space and observers with the contribution of technology.

Application (deadline the 30rd of June 2019):

The theme of the sixth edition of LMDP Festival is the interrelation between theatre, arts and new technology.

The application must contain:

• Artist’s CV;

• Detailed description of the project (in PDF);

• Technical rider;

• Selection of max 5 photos;

• Link audio / video material (Vimeo or Youtube).

The result is going to be notified only to selected projects by the the Month of July 2019.

Economic conditions:

Full coverage of all the costs for mobility in Cagliari (travels, board and accomodation) and the compilance for safety standards of the space is guaranteed by Kyber teatro. Subject to agreements with our technical director, also any material required for the presentation of the performance/show/play/installation can be covered.
The Open Call winners will have the opportunity to present their work two times (performance not paid, the partecipation it will be free) and to hold a workshop with entrance tickets for the audience (workshop proceeds will go to the artists).

Publication:

Applying for the call, artists agree that the projects should be represented at the Festival. Selected artists must provide a short biography and an abstract of the project. They also agree that the material related to the project could be published on the Festival website and/or presented to the press for promotional purposes.

Archiving process:

Artists authorise Kyber Teatro – L’aquilone di Viviana to present their work, to store the material and make it accessible through the Festival’s website. All rights to the artwork and images will remain to the artist. The Organization is also entitled to document the event in all its phases through audio recordings, video or images.

Application materials must be sent by the 30rd of June to: info@kyberteatro.it

The Hague, 21 May 2019

RomArchive project winner of the Creative Europe Reasearch Award

The 21 May the European Commission and Europa Nostra, the leading European heritage network, announced the winners of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2019, the Europe most prestigious honour in the field, funded by the Creative Europe programme.
Among the awarded initiatives there is the one of regarding the development of a digital archive of the Roma, an internationally accessible space that would make Romani cultures and histories visible as well as respond to stereotypes with a counter-history told by Roma themselves.
RomArchive is a growing collection of art of all types, complemented by historical documents and scholarly texts. The idea for the archive is based on the extensive research and numerous interviews that the project initiators, Franziska Sauerbrey and Isabel Raabe, conducted with Romani artists, curators, activists, and scholars from all over Europe. Rosa Cisneros from Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research was a key member of the Dance curatorial team: she has been involved in the project for several years taking care of the majority of the writing and curating for the dance section.
Until its launch, RomArchive’s development, was mainly supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
RomArchive’s development, until its launch, was mainly supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
The innovative aspect of RomArchive is that reflects the diversity of Romani national and cultural identities. Members of the community are involved in all positions of responsibility – as curators, artists, scholars, and members of the project’s advisory board. The curators determine the contents of the archive and gather collections related to dance, film, literature, music, theatre, the visual arts, and flamenco along with first-person testimonies related to the persecution of Roma under the Nazi regime and scholarly material on the civil rights movement.
“The subject of this research is essential for the history of the people of Europe”, the jury said, “Roma, with twelve million people, constitute the largest neglected minority in Europe. This archive is particularly innovative as it pays attention to the self-representation of Romani identities, expressing both tangible and intangible aspects of this heritage and moving away from the stereotypical perceptions of Roma”.
The wealth of Romani artistic and cultural production – tightly interwoven with that of Europe as a whole – is rendered visible and accessible by RomArchive, to the benefit of all Europeans. “European identity is based in its diversity and in sharing a sense of values and of belonging, to which this project contributes,” the jury said.
The website is already available in English, German, and the Romani language with further languages envisioned in the near future.
“The digital archiving of Romani arts represents a first initiative in knowledge collection and dissemination and already represents 5,000 objects. This multilingual website, available in Romanes, is a constantly growing platform,” the jury noted.
More information
https://blog.romarchive.eu/
European Heritage Europa Nostra Awards

Brussels (Belgium), 24-26 September 2019

European Research and Innovation Days

The European Research & Innovation Days draft programme is now available!

This programme will be updated in the coming weeks and registrations will open in early June. When you register you will receive an automated email acknowledging receipt of your registration. Please note however that this does not mean confirmation of your participation – confirmation of your participation will come in a second email.

This event – the first of its kind – is shaping up to become the annual meeting place for key actors and actions driving a vibrant innovation economy in Europe. Bringing together Europe’s best and brightest researchers, scientists, innovators and policy-makers to debate and shape the future research and innovation landscape.

The event will feature three main elements:

POLICY CONFERENCE: 24 – 26 SEPTEMBER

Bringing together world leaders and policy-makers from industry, finance, academia and the entrepreneurial community to debate and shape the future research and innovation landscape. The conference will be an extremely important part of the strategic planning process that will set the foundations for the launch of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) – the proposed €100 billion EU programme for research and innovation;

INNOVATIVE EUROPE HUB: 25 – 26 SEPTEMBER

This is an unparalleled meeting and exhibition space for inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and the whole range of services, businesses, civil society organisations, agencies and intermediaries that make European science technology so dynamic.

SCIENCE IS WONDERFUL! EXHIBITION: 25 – 26 SEPTEMBER

Free and open to everybody, the ‘Science is Wonderful!’ exhibition is a celebration of the very best research and innovation Europe has to offer, from light-bulb moments to game-changing new technologies. Through hands-on experiments and face-to-face chats with researchers, visitors will learn about fighting cancer, global warming, hunger and drought, among many other pressing issues in our daily lives.

Diary notes

Host: European Commission’s Research & Innovation Directorate-General

Venue: KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Quai des Péniches in Brussels, Belgium

Date: 24-26 September 2019

Next steps

Registration will open in early June.

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with developments by following our hashtag #RiDaysEU on @EUScienceInnov Twitter / Facebook and by visiting the Conference website

30th May 30 2019, the Medieval Civic Museum, Bologna (Italy)

The first ROCK Roadshow: Technical tests of transmission!

The European ROCK project – Regeneration and Optimization of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge cities – funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 program and coordinated by the Municipality of Bologna has organized its first Roadshow that will be hold in Bologna the 30th of May.
Key concepts will be: active participation, cultural heritage, digital potential.

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The ROCK project is an important laboratory for sharing good practices and experimenting with innovative solutions for the enhancement of the cultural heritage and for the sustainable future of cities.
The event’s goal is to introduce the innovative tools and solutions provided by the project for the enhancement of the cultural heritage and for the sustainable future of cities.
On this regard, one of the main topics will be the presentation of the innovatorsinculturalheritage.eu platform as well as a rich repertoire of innovations for the management of urban innovation based on the enhancement of cultural Heritage. Participants will be invited to test the applications and products personally.

The programme is organized in 4 sections:

1. The ROCK project: innovation and participation. A brief introduction of the ROCK project

2. Participation in Cultural Heritage: tools in comparison. Presentation of the main applications ( Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor, Cultural Gems, WunderBo) and how they work.

3. Seeing is believing

Experiential moment of Cultural Gems and WunderBo through the involvement of facilitators and experts, aimed at testing and collecting feedback and suggestions from the participants.

4. Conclusions

Future activities of ROCK and upcoming stages of the Roadshow (Lisbon and Skopje, in the Republic of Macedonia)

Further informations:

at Galerie Mordoch, visitors are immersed in the digital world and the world of computers to question the notion of self-portrait

Machine Vision 2019 – digital exhibition in Paris

Digital artist Miguel Chevalier has a solo exhibition « Machine Vision 2019 » at Galerie Mordoch in Paris, where he is presenting his latest research into the theme of the digitized body, a theme he has been exploring since the 1980s.

L’œil de la machine is a new interactive digital artwork that explores the notion of the self-portrait. It also addresses the question of the new types of images produced by surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition systems. Visitors are immersed in the digital world and the world of computers as soon as they enter the gallery, whose walls are covered with wallpaper made up of fragments of algorithms like, a code waiting to be deciphered. Two variations created by software written by algorithmist Claude Micheli are displayed, one on an 82-inch vertical screen and the other on a curved, horizontal monitor measuring 65 inches.

Miguel CHEVALIER “Machine Vision 2019” Galerie Lélia Mordoch, Paris (France) from Claude Mossessian on Vimeo.

By standing in front of them, the viewer shifts from the real to the virtual world for the duration of an ephemeral artistic performance. His/her portrait is deconstructed in real time in a constant interaction between man and machine. Captured by a camera connected to a computer that processes the data according to different geometric algorithms, the visitor’s silhouette undergoes a process of tessellation as it is fragmented and divided up into thousands of polygons. The exhibition also presents an exclusive preview of different creations that address the theme of infinity, either presented on monitors or in the form of one-sided sculptures that endless turn on their axis. The exhibit also includes works in the manner of a voronoi diagram that are screen-printed on Dacryl® panels, such as a self-portrait of the artist, or a representation of Le Marcheur, a symbol of 21st century man. The exhibition is in Paris until 25th May.

Adelaide (Australia), 21-25 October 2019

Designing the Archive: 2019 Conference ASA-ICA-ARANZ-PARBICA

Text by Caterina Sbrana.

The Australian Society of Archivists (ASA), Archives and Records Association of New Zealand Te Huinga Mahara (ARANZ), the International Council on Archives (ICA) and the Pacific Regional Branch International Council on Archives (PARBICA) organize an international conference called Designing the Archive that will be held from 21 to 25 October 2019 in Adelaide, South Australia.

ph. Hiro Ishino

“The conference program aims to explore the use of empathy, creativity, innovation, experimentation, prototyping, and co-design in the development of recordkeeping systems, information governance frameworks, archival programs and services, archive buildings and spaces, or digital archives”.

The following themes will be discussed in the conferences and workshops: Innovation in next generation digital archives, Co-design of recordkeeping systems, Designing community and Indigenous archives, Designing recordkeeping systems for creative, technical and scientific activities, Designing governance and programs to meet citizen and customer needs, Design of archival spaces and buildings for preservation, exploration and discovery and Creativity in the archives.

Organizers claim that “The program provides an opportunity to explore how we manage records and archives of the design process itself across a range of industries from architecture to fashion, engineering to environmental management”.

The conference is adressed to Archivists and professionals from the archives, schools, religious bodies, NGOs, companies, government institutions, digital archivists, people keeping and working with community and indigenous archives and collections, managers involved in design of recordkeeping systems, and long term retention of digital and analogue data, professionals who work with design archives (e.g. architecture museums, fashion archives, etc).

The conference logo was created through a design process involving Pitjantjatjara artist Audrey Brumby and graphic designer Matthew Aldous in collaboration with Indigenu Gallery Director Tony Straccia. It represents people connecting and linking, going around communities talking, sharing, spreading stories and messages.

The conference takes place in the middle of Adelaide Plains, in Tarntanya land – the red kangaroo place in the Kaurna language, in Adelaide Oval. It is situated on the northern side of the Riverbank Precinct between the city centre and North Adelaide. “The oval dates back to 1871 and has been extensively redeveloped in recent years”.

The importance of the archives is fully described on ICA website where we can read: “Archives are witnesses to the past. They provide evidence, explanation and justification both for past actions and current decisions. Archives enable society to undertake a wide range of roles that enable civilised communities to take root and flourish, from enabling education and research, providing entertainment and leisure, to protecting human rights and confirming identity. Archives are unique, contemporaneous records and so once lost cannot be replaced. It is only through proper identification, care and wide access that the vital role that archives has can be fully realised to the benefit of humanity”.

Key dates

19 – 20 October 2019 – ICA Governance Meetings
21 October 2019 – ICA workshops, ASA SIGs and AGM
22 – 24 October 2019 – Conference (3 days) and ICA General Assembly (22 October)
25 October 2019 – ICA Summit on Indigenous Matters, workshops and cultural visits

Programme and more information:

https://www.ica.org/en/schedule

https://www.ica.org/en/why-archiving

21 May 2019, Pécs, Hungary

The charming Roma Cultural Heritage

The upcoming local encounter of the Minority Heritage Pilot f REACH Project will be focusing on Roma intangible cultural heritage.
It is hosted by the Gandhi High School in Pécs, the first Romani high school which became a part of the National Register of Best Safeguarding Practices of UNESCO in Hungary.
Two other Roma heritage communities, listed as an element of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Hungary will be represented as well: the Nagyecsed Hungarian and Gypsy Dance Traditions and the Rajkó Orchestra and Art School.
Beyond the three UNESCO recognized organizations, experts and professionals from Roma culture heritage sector will join the event, such as instructors of the UCCU Foundation and professors from the Department of Romology at the University of Pécs. The meeting begins at the Kóstolda Roma Home Restaurant, which is not only important for getting to know the traditional Gypsy cuisine but also stands an important venue for the local Roma culture.