Digital meets Culture

Digital technologies contribute to the protection of the essence of Tibetan culture, inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

Tibetan Opera, the most popular traditional opera of minority ethnic groups in China

Text by Caterina Sbrana.

Let’s continue our research on intangible cultural heritage to learn about the most popular traditional opera of minority ethnic groups in China, the Tibetan Opera, nowdays accessible online at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/china-watch/culture/traditional-tibetan-opera/, or at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201909/03/WS5d6ddb68a310cf3e35569695_4.html.

The contribution of digital technology to the discovery and research on intangible heritage is becoming increasingly important and necessary to achieve what was declared in 2003 in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Tibetan Opera, inscribed by UNESCO in 2003 within the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, is the third case study that we would like to tell. It follows the stories of two other projects on intangible heritage: the project about the Patrimoine Vivant de la France that collected 114 films and more than 300 testimonials of horse riding, gastronomy, hunting, masters perfume-makers etc., and the project of South China Research Center of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology that gives access to social practices, legends, puzzles, expressions.

As stated in the Convention, the expressions of intangible cultural heritage are threatened by globalisation, it is also true that digital technologies such as videos, recordings, interviews become fundamental to ensure that the oral traditions transmitted by our ancestors, including rites and feasts can be preserved to foster intercultural dialogue. This is what the Culture Department in Tibet Autonomous Region of P.R. of China started doing, dealing with traditional dances.

Image from the UNESCO website

Tibetan Opera has been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage because it “represents the essence of Tibetan culture, and is recognized by its practitioners as central to their identity and a symbol of continuity that they endeavour to pass on from generation to generation” (http://en.chinaculture.org/focus/focus/2009feiyi/content_363115.htm).

As we read in the site of UNESCO, Tibetan Opera is a comprehensive art combining folk song, dance, storytelling, chant, acrobatics and religious performance. Most popular in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in western China, the performance begins with a prayer ceremony, including the cleansing of the stage by hunters and blessings by the elder, and it concludes with another blessing. The heart of the opera is a drama narrated by a single speaker and enacted by performers supported by groups of singers, dancers and acrobats.

Image from the UNESCO website

Actors wear traditional masks of a variety of shapes and colours that contrast with their simple makeup. Performances may take place in public squares or temples (or, today, on stage), with the centre of the space marked by a tree placed on the ground, wrapped in colourful paper and surrounded by purified water and theatrical props. Rooted in Buddhist teachings, the stories told in Tibetan Opera recount the triumph of good and the punishment of evil and therefore serve a social teaching function for the community.

This multifaceted representative of Tibetan art and cultural heritage also acts as a bridge among Tibetans in different parts of the country, promoting ethnic unity and pride. I suggest you a video on Tibetan Opera, known as Lhamo or Ache Lhamo in Tibetan. The video, available on Youtube, allows to admire dancers in extraordinary religious ceremonies and it looks like watching a fossil culture that returns to life.

Thanks to the spread of those videos representing the Tibetan Opera dances, supported by digital availability and online distribution, a local interest in this intangible cultural heritage has also increased: if in 2010 there were only 30 Tibetan folk teams work, almost a decade later, the teams have increased fivefold.

Digital technology is not only necessary for the preservation of intangible heritage through the creation of multimedia documents, stories and videos that can provide a longer life to vulnerable cultural jewellery but also to share precious cultural experiences and to improve the knowledge and awareness of history and traditions of the civilisations of many nations and regions worldwide.

Website: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/tibetan-opera-00208

The artistic work created by Gianluca Cingolani successfully engaged students in dynamic dialogues on the boundaries, limits and possibilities of digital art

The exhibition Fragmenta, dialoguing with Generation Z

From 16 November to 6 December at Today Museum of Bejing the solo exhibition Fragmenta dedicated to the digital art of Gianluca Cingolani was held, garnering great interest, in particular, on the part of the Generation Z audience.

Gianluca Cingolani is a multidisciplinary artist, working with video, photography, graphics and music. Striding across these different disciplines, his process of creating art is centered on the technique of digital compositing, through which he slowly builds his work, layer by layer, integrating, overlapping, manipulating signs, photographic traces, video frames, sounds, all of which are fragments of memories and ancient knowledge.

The combination of ancient and new understanding of classical and contemporary languages, as well as of digital and non digital dimensions, was one of the central themes of the exhibition. On this theme a collateral event, ie a conference about the relations between digital art, memory and history has been organized, on the 23^rd of November, at the Today Museum, attended by students coming from Bejing University, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing Film Academy and Univrsity of International Business and Economics.

The artistic work created by Gianluca Cingolani successfully engaged Gen Z students in dynamic dialogues on the boundaries, limits and possibilities of digital art, on the several ways of operating in the digital dimension.

With his exhibition Fragmenta Cingolani advocated abandoning the passive use of digital instruments, to start a dialogue between digital instruments and ancient and complex work processes, as he combines combining routes and knowledge sourced from graphics, photography, and visual arts in his own work. The digital thus becomes not a mere tool to be used, consumed, but, instead, the instrument for a new “ars combinatoria”, for a novel form of artistic creativity.

#therulesofthegame, 10-13 October 2019

Culture Moves project: Dance (Algo)Rhythms

The CultureMoves research team of the C-DaRE center of Coventry University – Sarah Whatley, Rosa Cisneros and Marie-Louise Crawley – participated in the ‘Moving Culture: Tourism, Dance and Digital Storytelling’, organised by the Culture Moves project in Pisa.

Key stakeholders from the cultural heritage, tourism, education and creative industries, with speakers from internationally renowned organisations such as Pep Gatell (La Fura dels Baus), Milena Popova (Europeana), Alfredo di Liguori (PugliaPromozione), and Sara di Giorgio (CulturaItalia) discussed new forms of creative and digital engagement, presenting inspiring examples of best practice.

The conference was the occasion to host the opening of Dance (Algo)Rhythms, a video installation for the promotion of the Apuan Riviera region carried out by the Culture Moves project. Conceived and designed by Studio RF (Roberto Fazio), Dance (Algo)Rhythms proposes the creative re-use of digital content to tell the story of a place in a human-computer interactive form. The digital content used in the work was kindly provided by Europeana, the EX APT photographic archive (Provincial Archive of Massa-Carrara) and by the historical archive of the Marble Railway (Municipality of Carrara). The public were invited to visit the installation, enter into a relationship with the digital content, and by their movements, modify it, giving life to new artistic forms. On the evening of 11th October, live dance performances took place within the video installation during which classical, historical and hip-hop dancers transformed the main elements of the Apuan Riviera – mountains, marble quarries and coastline – into a digital scenography.

The appointment in Pisa is just the latest of a series of encounters organised by C-DaRE on the theme of dance and digital space.

In early November, the team of C-DaRE met with artists, researchers, practitioners and dance experts across the north of the UK (Leeds / Slanjayvah Danza; Manchester / Anton Mirto; Amy Voris) to undertake theoretical and practical explorations of Europeana and the CultureMoves digital storytelling and dance annotation tools (MovesCollect, MovesScrapbook, MotionNotes).

On the 7th November, an interactive workshop was organised at One Dance UK’s international conference in Salford, Re:generations 2019.

The team also presented at the InDialogue 2019 conference in Lincoln.

For more information on the CultureMoves project and what we are up to: https://www.culturemoves.eu/post/82309953

Riga (Latvia), 09-12 June 2020

ELAG 2020, call for papers open until 12 February

img. Līga Landsberga [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] Wikimedia commons.

ELAG is the European Library Automation Group and the next 44th ELAG conference will take place in Riga, Latvia from 09 to 12 June 2020.

You can contribute to the ELAG conference in several ways by submitting:

A presentation proposal: They are the core of the ELAG programme. Presentations allow you to present your work in 25 minutes in a plenary session. After which there are 5 minutes for questions.

A workshop proposal: Workshops are run throughout the main ELAG programme and are used for group discussions on a selected topic. The workshop leader acts as the moderator of these discussions. Workshops are split into 2 sessions on 2 days of 1.5 hours each. On the last day the participants of the workshop need to present a short 10-15 minute summary about the results of the workshop during the plenary session.

A bootcamp proposal: Bootcamp start on the day before the conference. They typically provide hands-on training on software, tools relevant to the community. Bootcamps can be short (2-3 hours) or take a whole day (6 hours).

Some ideas and previous topics for workshops and bootcamps: DevOps & infrastructure bootcamp, Fail4Lib (history of fails in your software projects), deep learning in libraries, a deep dive into tools like Ansible, Apache Nifi, and Catmandu; or other!

Guidelines for conference presentations, workshops and bootcamps are available at: https://wp.me/P5cYg0-s

To submit a presentation, workshop, or bootcamp proposal, please complete the form here: http://bit.ly/ELAG2020cfp.

The deadline for proposals is February 12, 2020. All proposals will be reviewed by the ELAG 2019 Programme Committee, and the results of the review process will be sent by March 11, 2020.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to Peter van Boheemen, Chair of the ELAG 2019 Programme Committee, at peter.vanboheemen@wur.nl.

Save the date: Wednesday, March 25 - Friday, March 27, Berlin (DE)

2020 March – Documentation Strategies in (Archaeological) Open-Air Museums

Cattura 1 What’s an open-air museum?
What is it for?
How can it be preserved?
Open-air museums are the faithful reconstruction of medieval villages.
Starting from the discovery of (pre)history archaeological sites and architectural sources, experts and professionals are able to recreate the environment of the houses starting from the same foundations and using the same techniques of construction and materials as in the origin.
Open-air museums don’t handle just the architectural aspect, but also the dwellings and the whole village comes back to life through the representation and staging of the ancient crafts and daily habits that characterized the evolution of the local people in the medieval period.
EXARC is the International Association of Archaeological Open-Air Museums and Experimental Archaeology and since many years has been engaged in the reconstruction and maintenance of this cultural heritage.
Cattura3 EXARC is an affiliated organization of ICOM, the International Council Of Museums.
It’s main goal is to transmit the knowledge of how life used to be in the past, of the traditions and crafts that characterize the evolution of a people in a specific historical period.
To tell this wonderful story, EXARC faithfully recreates the same environment by transporting the visitor hundreds of years back into time.
Using empirical, sensorial and visual methodologies, these museums explain what the world was like before our times and what we can learn from the past.
According to EXARC, this wealth of knowledge risks to be lost.
First of all because it is required the application of digital technique of preservation in order to pass on and use this cultural heritage for future research and dissemination.
On this regard, we must be concerned that many open-air museums do not have appropriate technical skills to perform this activity and are likely to disappear.
Secondly, the only way to preserve a specific type of knowledge is by teaching to future generations the art of ancient crafts and craftsmanship and this is something that it is not really assumed.
On the basis of these reflections, EXARC, in collaboration with Museumsdorf Düppel (DE), organized the international conference of next March and for this occasion launched a call for papers to trigger a debate about experiences and example of documentation in other open- air museums both on the (re) construction, up-keep and decay of houses as well as on craft activities.
The conference will take full days of 26 & 27 March, including an afternoon program and dinner on the 27th.
On Wednesday 25th there will be an optional excursion to the Stadtmuseum Berlin.
Click here for the program and full information about the conference

A good experience of Participation and Co-working

Remarkable outcomes for the REACH International Workshop on Rural Heritage

The last 26th November, the University of Granada, task leader of the Rural Heritage Pilot of the REACH project, held a Workshop on“Participatory Approaches for Territorial Cohesion”.

Aim of the meeting was to investigate the value of participatory preservation of Cultural Heritage in terms of research advancement and social innovation.

Taking example by the experiences collected in the framework of the MEMOLA project focused on the recovery of Traditional Agrosystems, the main topic of discussion was to pinpoint Best Practices for involving local communities in the care and preservation of the rural areas by instilling awareness of its cultural and environmental value and promoting responsible behaviours and civil engagement.

In this general contest, several International professionals presented their own experiences, sharing reflections and researches.

In summary the topics of the presentations of the speakers:

Jesús Fernández Fernández, from Ecomuseo La Ponte, introduced the concept of Ecomuseum and related case studies
Paola Nella Branduini, from the Politecnico of Milan, presented the thirty-year experience of the Ticino park.
Sergio Couto González from ICCA Consortium and Iniciativas Comunales, left his contribute on “Re-thinking the commons: collective governance as heritage for facing global challenges.”
Manuela Martínez focused the presentation on the case study of La Vega and the action of preservation of the Granada’s Hystoric Agrarian Territory.
Carolina Yacamán Ochoa, from the Complutense University of Madrid, introduced the cases study of the agrarian parc of Fuenlabrada and the legislative proposal of protection of soils of high agroecological value and of soils of agricultural interest.

The synergy e dynamism of debate were intense and positive so that participant could take advantage of this meeting by understanding different perceptions of rural heritage and all the problematic for it conservation, preservation and sustainability.

To learn more about the workshop: https://www.reach-culture.eu/events/workshops/workshop-on-participatory-approaches-for-territorial-cohesion

Workshop Resumen

Vienna (Austria), 10th June 2020

OPFCON celebrating 10 years of the Open Preservation Foundation

2020 marks 10 years of the Open Preservation Foundation. To honour this occasion, we invite you to join us at a global celebration on 10 June at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. OPFCON is transformed into an online event.

OPFCON celebrates a decade of OPF, considers our impact on the community, and reflects on our role in the future of digital preservation.

Webpage: https://openpreservation.org/event/opfcon/

The theme of OPFCON is open sustainable digital preservation and we invite contributions that consider the following areas:

Knowledge sharing, policy and best practice
Innovation and technology
Sustainability through community collaboration

how co-creation is enabled, mixing institutional heritage, crowdsourced memorabilia and personal stories

The technology and methodology behind WeAre#EuropeForCulture

WeAre#EuropeForCulture wanted people and citizens of any age and background to meet cultural heritage and interact with it, under the motto “it’s your history too”. It is a stubborn misunderstanding that communities or individuals who do not routinely engage with cultural activities have little or no interest in cultural values or do not value their heritage, as lack of interaction can have a myriad causes. Nowadays, digital applications play a more and more important role in helping cultural institutions come closer to citizens and audience via interactive approaches to culture. The role of Europeana, that is acknowledged as the “digital face” of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, is key in sharing millions of cultural heritage items that can be accessed by citizens, education networks and creative industry: a wealth of material to inspire new ways of conceiving cultural heritage creation, interaction and enjoyment.

But all this institutional material available online is only a part of the cultural heritage of people and places, which is not something that is exclusively kept in memory institutions, and it is not about objects and monuments only but it is also our traditions and way of living. Often, people underestimate the importance of the cultural heritage that is in their hands or in their family stories, but everybody preserves some precious items and old photos, which render such cultural riches.

Basing on heritage photography, WeAre#EuropeForCulture leverages on a medium that is always very appreciated by all kinds of people. Photography, particularly the one depicting the stories and lives of our grandfathers, is something everybody easily relates to and interacts with. It really shows to the eye places, faces and situations that are common across generations and across countries, but it also captures traditions and peculiar stories from the local heritage that deserve to be re-discovered and shared.

Combining heritage items and crowdsourced stories and photographs, WeAre#EuropeForCulture offered thousands of European citizens an opportunity to engage with both the History and their personal histories.

To enable all this, the exhibitions in 10 iconic cities in Europe were co-created and then displayed via a multiscreen technology that allowed both exhibition building and visitors interaction. Each exhibition was prepared well in advance during a series of co-creation sessions and workshops: during the preparatory phase and also at the co-creation workshops, different types of exhibitions formats were explored, customizing them to the requirement, needs and creative proposals of the participants. Photographic materials sourced from Museums and Europeana were mixed creatively with crowdsourced family photos and stories.

The result is an easy-to-use, entertaining and modern way of interacting with cultural heritage and stories. The MuPop technology at the base of the WeAre#EuropeForCulture experience is a easy to access, interactive and highly engaging exhibition software that allows users to interact with content by simply connecting their own smartphone to the screen. As starting point of the experience, the exhibition runs in autoplay mode, to showcase the functionalities, simulating user input so that it draws maximum attention. Visitors can then join in (and leave) at any time, with multiple users connected simultaneously.

WeAre#EuropeForCulture leverages on this technology to be ‘where digital meets physical’, and as such the MuPop experience is more than just a digital screen that visitors can interact with. The idea is to lower the threshold for audiences to engage with cultural heritage, art and educational content, by making the content available in an accessible and playful way, within, but not necessarily in, a typical museum context, and making optimal use of the physical dimension of the spaces.

Brussels, 6-7 February 2020

PAST | PRESENT event of EYCH project WeAre#EuropeForCulture

WeAre#EuropeForCulture, financed in the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, has the objective to realize a series of pop-up exhibitions across 2019 in various European cities, to celebrate the diversity of European cultural heritage and to empower citizens in a more participative approach to cultural heritage. The exhibitions are co-created joining institutional cultural heritage with crowdsourced stories and personal items.

Download the Booklet of WeAre#EuropeForCulture with photos and stories from the project’s events! PDF, 6 Mb.

As a common theme of these participatory exhibitions, the PAST | PRESENT event of the project celebrates the richness of this European cultural heritage, its value for our contemporary life, and the importance of best practices in the cultural heritage. The key concept is that the ‘past‘ is not just opposed to the ‘present‘ as in a simple chronological approach, but it is also experienced by and exposed to the audience in a contemporary context and shared as a ‘present’ to future generations.

PAST | PRESENT – 10 European cities, 10 heritage stories

On 6-7 February 2020, a sparkling event at the House of European History in Brussels celebrated the experiences of all these participatory exhibitions that took place throughtout Europe.

In the afternoon, the project coordinators Fred Truyen, Antonella Fresa and Sofie Taes were received by the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture and Education, Youth and Sport Ms. Mariya Gabriel who expressed kind words and congratulations for the active engagement in the WeAre#EuropeForCulture projects, “making sure that cultural heritage is accessible to all people”.

[Show as slideshow]

Afterwards, the exclusive invitation-only event started at the House of European History with speeches and interventions by Constanze Itzel, HEH Museum Director; Catherine Magnant, Head of Unit Cultural Policy, EC; Anne Grady, EC and of course with insight and stories of the project by the partners. The invited guests were then invited to visit the interactive installation especially realized for the event, bringing together images, recordings and interactions from the various locations which hosted and created the pop-up exhibitions. A multiscreen setting allowed visitors to travel through and interact with the stories unfolded at the different events throughout Europe, showcasing a kaleidoscope of local history and the variety and commonalities of our cultural heritage.

A ceremony followed to celebrate the participants of the various local events, who came to Brussels from all over Europe.

On February 7th, the exhibition opened to the general public with guided tours.

Website: https://www.photoconsortium.net/europeforculture/

Agenda 6th February (PDF, 87 Kb)

21-22 November 2019

Education, Youth, Culture and Sports European Council

These days, 21-22 November 2019, the European council is meeting in Brussels to discuss Education, Youth, Culture and Sports.

Culture was one of the main topic of yesterday meeting which aimed to improve the contribution of culture to the global challenge of sustainability by adopting a resolution to strengthen the contribution of culture to sustainable development.

With the goal of understanding the current situation of the European cultural, creative and audiovisual industries (ICCs) and assessing how they can operate and position themselves better on the global market, the ministers of culture held a public debate titled ‘Strengths, innovation potential and global competitiveness of the European cultural, creative and audiovisual industries’.

During the discussion Ministers identified the main challenges for the CCIs in the EU and the most important strengths of European CCIs:
– huge potential for growth
– ability to provide local content
– high quality of production
– linguistic and cultural diversity

The debate highlighed the need to create favourable conditions for the functioning of CCIs (legislative measures, facilitating funding, investing in digital skills and media literacy) and stressed the importance of cooperation at European level as a key for strengthening the competitiveness of European CCIs.

At the end of the meeting the Council adopted a resolution on the cultural dimension of sustainable development that will start a process aimed to develop an action plan by the European Commission in cooperation with member states.

Read the outcome of the Council meeting of 21 November here.

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