Digital meets Culture

Collaborative forms and engagement for History Making. Contribution of the REACH project

International Workshop: Digital History and Public History

The meeting, held last 29th October at the University of Alicante, represented a good occasion for All those involved in the promotion an preservation of Cultural Heritage in order to introduce the projects they are currently carry on and debate on theoretical and practical aspects for promoting collaborative forms which help to “Build History”.
On this regard, Dr Maurizio Toscano, from the University of Granada, task leader of the Rural Heritage Pilot of REACH project, gave his contribute to the dialogue with a speech on “Participatory approaches and engagement strategies in Digital History projects“.
The workshop was organised in the framework of the “Guerra e Historia Pùblica” (GeHP, War and Public History), an interdisciplinary project which aims to set up a digital platform for sharing knowledge about the Independent War of the Community of Valencia (1808-1814) among citizen and in this way,educate to peace values and promote a sensible and engaged tourism.
The use of this smart platform will allow researches, teachers, tourism agents etc…to export data and re-use them for their purposes.

Full Programme

An interactive and dynamic tool for Data Collection

Where the researcher cannot get: open platforms to collaborate with citizens on cultural heritage research data

Last week, the Editorial of the University of Granada (UGR) and Downhill Publishing have published a book about Digital Humanities, titled “Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Digitales Aplicadas.Casos de estudio y perspectivas críticas”.(Social Sciences and Digital Humanities Applied. Case studies and critical perspectives.)
The work is composed of twenty-five chapters, each one focus on a specific theme, but all facing a common topic: the digitization as background or digital methodologies as a form. A set of approaches that, through digitization, become a source of inspiration to develop new analyses, helping in this way, to better understand the world in which we live. Chapters address a wide range of current issues such as feminism, sexuality, social control, geopolitical problems, new rights and digital threats, economy, tourism, education in multiple forms, museums, archives, digitization projects, studies literary, art.
In this framework, Dr Maurizio Toscano, from the University of Granada, task leader for the REACH project Rural Heritage Pilot, gives his contribute by signing a chapter which aims to affirm the importance to pass from a methodology of Local data collection, currently used to store the raw data collected during the research activities to Open Data Platforms.
The first is accessible by a closed number of research groups and this considerably reduce its usefulness as source of knowledge for the community. On the contrary, the storage of datasets on an online Platform would encourage the cooperation and interaction between a wide range of users, by sharing contents, best practices, and results reached during the research activity in the field of Cultural Heritage.
In order to demonstrate the huge benefit the use of this tools would bring to the entire scientific community, the author presents three case studies, which have been recently developed as results of collaboration between university research groups in the humanities.
The core of the paper is the discussion, “where we analyse the lessons learnt from applying this approach, highlighting its benefits and the intrinsic issues of the process”.

The full bibliographical cite is:
Toscano, M. (2018). Where the researcher cannot get: open platorms to collaborate with citizens on cultural heritage research data. En E. Romero Frías y L. Bocanegra Barbec(Eds.),
Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Digitales Aplicadas (pp. 538-561). Granada, España: Universidad de Granada [ISBN: 978-84-338-6318-8]. New York, USA: Downhill Publishing [ISBN:978-0-9897361-7-6].

The book, available in Open Access, can be downloaded at http://editorial.ugr.es/pages/publicacionesenabierto
The DOI, available on Zenodo, is https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1469337

the festival is accepting submission from international videoartists

Magmart | video under volcano

Magmart | video under volcano is an international videoart festival, which over the years has seen the participation of more than 1400 artists from +80 different countries, with thousand submitted videos.

The Festival is open to all international videoartists. Partecipation is free.

Between all submitted videos, will be done a final selection based on vote of an international Jury composed by experts.

Any author can participate with max 5 videos.

Deadline: Will be accepted only the videos received within midnight of April, 07 2019.

https://www.magmart.it/rules.php

Cyprus 29th October-3rd November 2018

REACH project supports EUROMED Conference 2018

The 7th edition of the International Conference on Digital Heritage will host hundreds of excellent oral and poster presentations, as well as workshops and demonstrations from academia and industry, reflecting the wide scope of the work of the main actors in the area of cultural heritage. Contributions are expected by policy makers, professionals, students and delegates from more than 60 countries.

The common goal is to focus on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, the use of cutting edge technologies for the protection, preservation, conservation, massive digitalisation and visualization/presentation of the Cultural Heritage content.

REACH project supports EUROMED 2018 because of the essential rule played by digitization for the promotion of participatory approaches to culture.
REACH is already coordinating its activity with other main players in the sector as VIMM project and Photoconsortium, both, directly involved in the support of the conference too. As in the past they will keep cooperating and promoting future initiatives in line with this upcoming one and support the use of new technologies for increasing the awareness and participation of people to the enhancement of the European cultural heritage.
Read more about Euromed 2018 at http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/7th-euromed-2018-conference-progress-in-cultural-heritage-e-documentation-preservation-and-protection/

interesting PhD dissertation by Serdar Aydin focused on the architectural heritage best practices tested in Kashgar, China

A digital design approach to creative and participatory content-making in digital heritage

“Decoding Kashgar: A Digital Design Approach to Steer and Diversify Creative Engagement in Digital Heritage.” is the title of a PhD thesis by Serdar Aydin at the Victoria University of Wellington.

Digital tools have become critical instruments in preserving and communicating the value of heritage as important cultural expressions of the past. A consequence of digitalisation is the democratisation of heritage institutions, such as museums, which are found to value increasingly new types of content and new profiles of audiences. Digitisation plays a vital role in the alteration of the convictions of the heritage field to ‘materiality’ and ‘actuality.’ Although researchers acknowledge the significance of digital heritage in leading us into new ways of expressing ‘authenticity’ and ‘virtuality,’ studies have been confined to heritage activities comprised of digital documentation, representation and dissemination. Previous studies have reported on the role of public engagement in digital heritage which is criticised as consumptive, passive, guided and descriptive. Instead, the motivation of this research is to explore a new role that is ‘generative,’ ‘active’ and ‘creative’ for the production of heritage knowledge.

This dissertation demonstrates an innovative digital design approach to creative and participatory content-making in digital heritage. The research investigated the use of creative content generated collaboratively for knowledge production and acquisition in architectural heritage and tested in Kashgar, the westernmost city in China. The research conceives an interdisciplinary methodology, integrating design with the standard activities involved in digital heritage. The research examines the role of creative engagement for constructing digital heritage: creative engagement in a hybrid immersive virtual reality environment is experimented with and findings are analysed qualitatively. Then, to measure the outcome of creative engagement quantitatively, a well-known technique in data mining is used to expose undisclosed patterns. It is the first time in digital heritage that a study employs association rule mining to interpret user-generated content. The qualitative findings of two initial experiments are synthesised with quantitative results of the third experiment to investigate how the creative contribution of people in content-making is generalizable.

Summary: http://www.themuseumofgamers.org/archive/2018/10/23/thesis-summary

Free access to the thesis: http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/7083

CC-BY-NC-SA

Kashgar image CC BY-SA 2.5 es

Facet Publishing announce the publication of 'Digital Archives: management, use and access' edited by Milena Dobreva

A wide-ranging overview of how the shift to digital is changing the landscape of archives

Today, accessibility to digital content is continuing to expand rapidly and all organizations which collect, preserve and provide access to the collective memory of humankind are expected to provide digital services. Does this transition into digital space require a substantial shift in the professional philosophy, knowledge and practice of archives?

This edited collection attempts to explore these uncharted territories by bringing together inspirational and informative chapters from international experts to help readers understand the drivers for change and their implications for archives. Editor Milena Dobreva said, “I hope the book will broaden and deepen the thinking and dialogue between all those academics, professionals and students who are working on different aspects of the digital cultural and scientific heritage”.

The book: http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=049344#.W87TXfZuLIU

Reassessment of the role of archives in the digital environment serves to develop critical approaches to current trends in the broader heritage sector, including cultural industries experimenting with sustainable business models for cultural production, digitization of analogue cultural heritage, and the related IPR issues surrounding the re-use of digital objects and data for research, education, advocacy and art.

Professor Kalpana Shankar said, “Archives and access continue to matter, perhaps more than ever. As digital material proliferates and the tools to manipulate it do so as well, what is real and what is false online become difficult to disambiguate. Human rights, scientific research and ‘wicked’ geopolitical problems (and solving them) rests on accurate and universal access to records and data, whether one is talking about the international crises of forced migration and refugees, human rights, political corruption or climate change. The work of this book is in helping us, the reader, understand how archives and archivists navigate the entanglement of technical, social, organizational and legal challenges they face daily”.

Dr. Milena Dobreva is an Associate Professor at UCL Qatar where she is coordinating the MA in Library and Information Studies leading the introduction of four pathways in the programme including a specialisation on Archives, Records and Data Management. Previously she served as a Head of the Department of Library Information and Archive Sciences at the University of Malta spearheading the redesign and expansion of the departmental portfolio, and as the Founding Head of the first Digitisation Centre in Bulgaria where she was also a member on the Executive Board of the National Commission of UNESCO. Milena is a member of the editorial board of the IFLA Journal, and of the International Journal on Digital Libraries (IJDL) and is the co-editor of User Studies for Digital Library Development (Facet, 2012).

Contributors
Carla Basili, Italian National Research Council and Sapienza University;

Pierluigi Feliciati, University of Macerata; Edel Jennings, Waterford Institute of Technology; Enrico Natale, University of Basel; Gillian Oliver, Monash University;

Elli Papadopoulou, European Open Science Cloud pilot project; Oleksandr Pastukhov, University of Malta; Guy Pessach, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Trudy Huskamp Peterson, archival consultant and certified archivist; Panayiota Polydoratou, Alexander Technological Educational Institute (ATEI) of Thessaloniki;

Kalpana Shankar, University College Dublin; Sotirios Sismanis, information professional; Donald Tabone, Middlesex University, Malta.

The book is published by Facet Publishing and is available to pre-order from Bookpoint Ltd | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk. | Mailing Address: Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD. It will be available in North America from the American Library Association.

Warsaw University,16th October 2018.

REACH project presented at the International Conference on Multiple Heritages

Last Tuesday 16th October, was celebrated the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the Centre of studies of French language and culture at Warsaw University. For the occasion an International Conference titled: “Science et Société dans une Europe qui change”was held, where REACH project and its pilots were presented by Dr. Luda Klusakova, from Charles University, task leader of the Small Towns Heritage Pilots. This true cultural heritage of Warsaw University founded in 1958 with Michel Foucault as its first director, the center considers as its cultural heritage also the Staszic Palace, the seat of contemporary Polish Academy of Sciences, where in 1924 the French institute was founded.

Read more about the celebration at http://www.okf.uw.edu.pl/fr/multimedia/item/729-60-urodziny-okfisf-uw.html

the international art and design competition based in Venice stands calls artists to offer various opportunities

Open call for artists and designers of the 13th Arte Laguna Prize

The call for artists of the 13^th Arte Laguna Prize has officially opened. Arte Laguna Prize is an international art contest that has been promoting contemporary art for thirteen years, collecting thousands of applications from artists from all over the world, selected by a jury of excellence for the great exhibition in March in the evocative spaces of the Arsenale of Venice. In addition, the participants have the chance to win several awards in collaboration with companies, foundations, galleries, including cash prizes.

10 Contest categories: painting, sculpture and installation, photographic art, video art and short films, performance, virtual art, digital graphics, land art and this year’s new entry, urban art, design. The theme is free and there are no age or nationality restrictions.

The international jury will select 120 artists for:
– the final exhibition in Venice in March 2019
– 6 cash prizes of € 7,000 each
– publication in the official catalogue

The Prize international Partners will select the winners among all the participants for:

4 personal exhibitions in international Art Galleries
9 Art Residencies
4 collaborations with companies
2 collaborations with art platforms and foundations
participation in 4 International Festivals end exhibitions

www.artelagunaprize.com >>

ENTRIES OPEN UNTIL 27.11.2018 >>

FINAL EXHIBITION: ARSENALE OF VENICE

The collective exhibition will take place in the historical location of the Arsenale in Venice in March 2019. The exhibition’s opening ceremony will be on March 16^th, 2019.

CURATOR AND HEAD OF JURY: Igor Zanti (Italy, Curator and Art Critic)

JURY

Maxa Zoller (Germany, Artistic Director of the International Film Festival Dortmund | Cologne)
Eva González-Sancho (Spain, Co-curator of the first Oslo Biennale)
Vasili Tsereteli (Russia, Executive Director of MMOMA Moscow Museum of Modern Art)
Flavio Arensi (Italy, Director of the Museums of Legnano, Milano)
Alessandra Tiddia (Italy, Chief curator at l Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto)
Richard Noyce (United Kingdom, Writer, Scholar and Art Critic)
Simone Pallotta (Italy, Curator of Public and Urban Art)
Enrico Stefanelli (Italy, Artistic Director of Photolux Festival, Lucca)
Filippo Andreatta (Italy, Theatre Maker and Co-curator Centrale Fies)
Alfonso Femia (Italy, Architect)
Danilo Premoli (Italy, Architect and Designer)
Mattias Givell (Svezia, Co-Director of Wanås Konst, Vännäs)

CONTEST TERMS >>>
APPLY NOW >>>

tel. +39 041 5937242
info@artelagunaprize.com
www.artelagunaprize.com

the event takes place in London (UK) on 16-17 July

Call for papers is still open for next SAI – Computing Conference 2019

Computing Conference (formerly called Science and Information (SAI) Conference) is a research conference held in London, UK since 2013. The conference series has featured keynote talks, special sessions, poster presentation, tutorials, workshops, and contributed papers each year.

Despite the short history of computer science as a formal academic discipline, it has made a number of fundamental contributions to science and society—in fact, along with electronics, it is a founding science of the current epoch of human history called the Information Age and a driver of the Information Revolution

The goal of the conference is to be a premier venue for researchers and industry practitioners to share new ideas, research results and development experiences in various fields. It is one of the best respected conferences in the area of computer science.

Talks by industry experts on the state-of-the-art in computer science
Lectures by eminent scientists designed to inspire and inform
Presentations by innovative researchers coming from 50+ countries
Discussion-oriented sessions and networking breaks to enable collaborations

More info and call for papers/posters: http://saiconference.com/Computing

Deadline: 1 November 2018.

Vienna (Austria), 12-15 November 2018

Visual Heritage 2018, Cultural Heritage and New Technologies

The next edition of CHNT – Cultural Heritage and New Technologies will be organized in cooperation with the EG GCH (Eurographics Symposium and Graphics Cultural Heritage) and other partners in the City Hall of Vienna, Austria.

Visual Heritage 2018

DIGITIZE: RESEARCH – RECORD – REACTIVATE – RECONSTRUCT

The aim of this federated event is again to bring different communities in the same venue, to share experiences and discuss methodologies concerning digital visual media and their use in the context of heritage applications, to document digitally on at-risk archaeological sites, historical buildings, museums… and their texts, books, paints, pictures, objects … all records of through collecting original image collection’s source.

The 2018 edition will be a special event, since 2018 has been declared by the European Commission the “European Year of Cultural Heritage”. The event will take place during the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, in November 2018.

Therefore, Visual Heritage 2018 will be an ideal context for discussing European policies on digital heritage and digital humanities.

Website: http://www.chnt.at/

THE DETAILED SCHEDULE IS NOW ONLINE: https://www.chnt.at/program-visual-heritage-2018/