Digital meets Culture

Win up to €20,000 for the best ideas reusing Europeana's openly licensed content for innovative learning

The Europeana #edTech Challenge is a funding opportunity for entrepreneurs, developers, designers and educators who explore digital opportunities for education and training.

Do you have an exciting project in the intersection of culture, education and technology? We’re offering €20,000 for the best products, services or businesses that bring together cultural heritage and educational technology. Apply for the challenge before 28 February and show how to use cultural content to inspire learners of all ages.

We invite applications from individuals or teams of creatives interested in designing fantastic edTech projects using Europeana’s openly licensed content. Eligible proposals include but are not limited to digital applications, games, web services, learning software and digital learning materials (for instance, MOOCs). We accept proposals at various stages of maturity, including existing applications and educational platforms that would like to further develop their business potential.

Discover more about application criteria and terms & conditions: https://pro.europeana.eu/post/europeana-edtech-challenge

Rotterdam (The Netherlands), 15-16 May 2018

EuropeanaTech Conference 2018

SAVE THE DATE – The third international EuropeanaTech conference took place on the “ss Rotterdam” in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, May 15-16 as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

EuropeanaTech 2018 brought together an international network of technical and R&D specialists from memory organisations, research institutions and creative industries to share innovative progress and forecast the technical future of Europeana and digital cultural heritage.

It offered the opportunity to work with and learn from leading specialists, practitioners and researchers from across the world, to benefit from the mutual exchange of ideas, technology and code and as an event it leads the way in how technologies bring Europe’s cultural heritage closer to people

https://pro.europeana.eu/event/europeanatech-conference-2018

EuropeanaTech is about the practical application of research concepts and the latest technologies to digital libraries. For this edition of EuropeanaTech, we concentrated on the three D’s: Data, Discovery and Delivery. Intertwined are the concepts of participation, linked and big data; language and tools. Across all the subjects we are looking for the inclusion of rigorous evaluations of the outcomes. The conference was a mix of invited speakers and successful presentations of both gorgeous successes and glorious failures.

List of Topics

DATA

User generated content and metadata: from crowdsourcing of descriptive data and transcription projects to Wikidata and structured data on the Commons to how to combine institutional and user generated metadata. We are looking for what has worked, or what hasn’t and can be done better.
Enhancing the results of digitisation: various applications connect the act of digitisation with required data processes for the use of the data. What are the latest techniques, have they been applied at scale, do they work in the in the more challenging audio-visual areas? We are interested in everything from 3D capture, OCR, sound/video labelling, named entity recognition and feature detection, to machine or deep learning to help classify and categorise the digitised data.
Decentralisation vs Centralisation: We know that aggregation works as a process to bring together disparate data, standardised, normalise it and make it available to other parties, but we also know that this is labour intensive, very hierarchical, and does not distribute knowledge and expertise. On the other hand more decentralised ways of working have yet to be really proven in practice. Presentations that give the latest thinking on how we can best enable access to cultural heritage data and reduce friction costs are welcome, particularly with evaluation on the relative strengths and weaknesses.
Multilingualism: Google has more or less cracked full text translation of mainstream languages, but we are still struggling with niche languages and metadata. Presentations that evaluate the current thinking or give insights into the latest work in the area would fit well in this section of the creation and use of multilingual data in Cultural Heritage.

DISCOVERY

User Interaction: Search is still the dominant means of gaining access to the wealth of cultural heritage data now online, but does it represent that wealth? Search is ungenerous: it withholds information, and demands a query, what are the alternatives? Papers on generous interfaces and frictionless design are sought to shed new light on how Cultural Heritage can show itself more deeply. Evaluating the benefits and weaknesses to the user in the process.
Artificial Intelligence: For this subject topics ranging from machine learning to neural network-based approaches to Cultural Heritage are welcome. This includes applications of AI from image feature recognition to natural language processing, and from building search interfaces on features/colour similarity between images and discovery to the use of human metadata and computer vision. We would also be interested in the audio and moving image equivalents. Anything dealing with the combination of metadata tags, image similarity and machine learning based on user input would be very relevant as would Artificial Intelligence technology for content curation.

DELIVERY

Digital Innovation: The corporate culture of our memory institutions, set up to preserve and conserve our heritage and the organisation of digital innovation are not a marriage made in heaven. The Labs/Skunkworks model is increasingly seen at best as an interim stage and at worst as a dead end for organising innovation. So how should GLAMs go about organising for digital innovation? How can governments and/or funders best support digital transformation of the GLAM-sector?
Evaluation techniques: Evaluation should be part of everything we do in the publicly funded space of most of cultural heritage, but the how is struggling to gain a common language, one that we can apply so funders get a picture of the project within its broader context. Evaluation has been requested to be part of all papers submitted but the latest in techniques and agreement on a framework for the sector would constitute useful insights.
Open source community: What is the health and standing of the open source community within the cultural heritage sector? Does it thrive or is it a nice idea that is not a reality? How can projects with a limited lifespan create and sustain products for the sector at large while developing and engaging a thriving community around them? From digitisation to search engine development should there be more emphasis on the need for vibrant open source communities and more resources to realizing them? Papers on barriers and successes are requested.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS - deadline 31st January

workshop: The politics of metadata in participatory approaches: Opportunities, practices, and conflicts (DHN 2018)

Second call for proposals / Workshop at the conference Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 7 March 2018 at the University of Helsinki

This workshop seeks to expand critical perspectives on metadata in relation to public cultural heritage image collections online.
In our image-saturated time, the definition of therticipatory online practices such as crowdsourcing enable cultural heritage institutions to accelerate the development of digi also be seen as platforms for audience engagement, creating a deep connection to cultural heritage through online collaboration. Furthermore, open data and enhanced standards enabling interoperability might support new forms of collaboration between institutions, researchers, and the general public.
However, these participatory open science practices create new challenges due to the character of the networked publics involved and the established structures between and within institutions, but also new opportunities and practices when it comes to understanding and defining our shared images. Therefore, critical perspectives on metadata in relation to photographic collections online are vital. This calls for an interdisciplinary approach in the intersection between computer science, image studies, and cultural studies.

For this workshop, therefore, we invite participants to look more closely at different types of participatory practices online in relation to the cultural heritage domain, and at different levels of interaction. Possible sites of analysis could be the interaction between participants, the participation in the work by different stakeholders, the potentially privileged levels of interaction with the metadata, or tensions in the agency of the participants in relation to the task.
This half-day workshop explores the topics in mini presentations and brainstorming sessions, and will result in a research agenda for addressing these questions.

The position-paper should be 2-4 pages and using the Springer LNCS templates.
Send submissions and inquiries to the following email address:
politics-of-metadata@googlegroups.com

Deadline is Wednesday, January 31, 2018.

For more information visit the website: http://politicsofmetadata.blogs.dsv.su.se/

a White Paper aiming at fostering conversations in the audiovisual archiving and cultural heritage communities about the challenges they face

Towards a New Audiovisual Think Tank for Audiovisual Archivists and Cultural Heritage Professionals

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision has released its new White Paper, Towards a New Audiovisual Think Tank for Audiovisual Archivists and Cultural Heritage Professionals. The White Paper, the first effort from a new ‘AV Think Tank’ on audiovisual archiving initiated by Sound and Vision, aims to facilitate stakeholders active in the preservation of audiovisual heritage to identify their strategic priorities over the coming decade. The paper also puts forward 10 recommendations for collective action to address these priorities.

Written by Peter B. Kaufman of Intelligent Television and MIT, the White Paper is the result of months of open conversation with leading experts in the field representing various positions, archives, and cultural heritage institutions. The White Paper was publicly presented at the FIAT/IFTA 2017 World Conference in October in Mexico City, and input from many of the delegates was incorporated.

Johan Oomen, head of R&D at Sound and Vision, stated, “This White Paper is one of the first steps that we are taking to establish a new international thought leadership group – the AV Think Tank – with experts from around the globe. Through the AV Think Tank, we aim to lay the groundwork for an AV archiving sector that enables more long-term use of its assets, more learning, and more educational activity.”

The White Paper is meant to start a conversation with the audiovisual archiving and cultural heritage communities and within the AV Think Tank itself. It addresses the current context of the work that audiovisual archivists and cultural heritage professionals do and many of the challenges they face. It puts forth ten recommendations as strategic priorities for the coming ten years around which action, research and development, and resources could be organised. Each recommendation is accompanied by a timeline of first collective actions to take.

The AV Think Tank is committed to following up on these recommendations through a series of activities. The AV Think Tank is creating task forces and working groups focused on these issues. These groups will conduct further research and connect with other relevant stakeholder groups; lay the groundwork for policy and practice recommendations through the creation of handbooks, strategy papers, and other publications; and develop actions plans that connect directly to the interests of AV archivists and cultural heritage professionals. Through these activities, this group of international experts, in consultation with the wider community, is working to articulate an international research and action agenda for our shared strategic priorities for the next ten years.

The White Paper can downloaded directly as PDF here. To join the conversation about our shared strategic priorities, follow and comment on the White Paper on Medium here.

The AV Think Tank invites comment from and conversation with anyone interested in the present and future of our shared moving image cultural heritage.

To contact the AV Think Tank, please email: avthinktank@beeldengeluid.nl

Grand prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts

STARTS Prize 2018 Open Call – deadline 2nd March 2018

Appointed by the European Commission, Ars Electronica, BOZAR and Waag Society are launching a prize to select the most pioneering collaborations and results in the field of creativity and innovation at the crossings of science and technology with the arts. This follows the launch of a new activity in the European Commission named STARTS: Innovation at the nexus of Science, Technology, and the ARTS.

Science, Technology and Arts (=STARTS) form a nexus with an extraordinarily high potential for creative innovation. And such innovation is considered to be precisely what’s called for if we’re to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. The role of artists thus is no longer seen to be just about propagating scientific and technological knowledge and skills among the general public but much more as a kind of catalyst that can inspire and trigger innovative processes. The artistic practice of creative exploration and experimental appropriation of new technologies has a wide reaching potential to contribute to the development of new products and new economic, social and business models. Accordingly, the STARTS Prize focuses on artistic works that influence or change the way we look at technology, and on innovative forms of collaboration between the ICT sector and the world of art and culture.

Two prizes, each with €20,000 prize money, are offered to honor innovative projects at the intersection of science, technology and the arts: one for artistic exploration, and thus projects with the potential to influence or change the way technology is deployed, developed or perceived, and one for innovative collaboration between industry/technology and art/culture in ways that open up new paths for innovation.

Grand Prize—Artistic Exploration

Awarded for artistic exploration and art works where appropriation by the arts has a strong potential to influence or alter the use, deployment or perception of technology.

Grand Prize—Innovative Collaboration

Awarded for innovative collaboration between industry or technology and the arts that opens new pathways for innovation.

Submission phase ends on March 2, 2018!

More information: https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/

DIGITIZE: RESEARCH – RECORD - REACTIVATE - RECONSTRUCT

Visual Heritage 2018, Vienna, Austria – Call for SESSIONS (Deadline, January 20, 2018)

The next edition of CHNT (Cultural Heritage and New Technologies – www.chnt.at) will be organized in cooperation with the EG GCH (Eurographics Symposium and Graphics Cultural Heritage) and other partners (will be announced soon) in the City Hall of Vienna Austria. viThe 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 also take place during the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, at 2nd half of 2018.

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

CALL for SESSIONS, PANELS, ROUND TABLES, WORKSHOPS and ADVANCED ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRAININGS

We invite everybody to send us your proposals to organize a session, panel, workshop, round table, tutorial or advanced archaeological training.

Content of the proposal

Title of the session, ….
Name of chairs / organizer (max. 2)
Description of the planned session,… (200 – 300 words)
Target group
Specifics
Deadline: January 20, 2018
Notification: February 1, 2018

Please send your proposal to – kongrarchae@stadtarchaeologie.at

Open call for improving the capacity of H2020 projects in the development of policy recommendations

Policy Workshop “Coordinating Policy Recommendations for Durable Action”

How to produce a policy recommendation?
How can you effectively address European Commission representatives? Such kind of questions will be the main subject of this interesting initiative that will take place in Brussels, the 14th of February. The workshop is an initiative of two H2020 funding projects: COURAGE and DANDELION; it aims to coordinate policy recommendations of European projects in the field of cultural heritage by raising the most pressing issues in the field and finding solutions together with policy makers from the European Commission and European think tanks.
Read more about the workshop and how to join it at:
http://www.dandelion-europe.eu/en/events/dandelion-events/policy-workshop-coordinating-policy-recommendations-for-durable-action.html
For farther information about
H 2020 COURAGE project: http://cultural-opposition.eu/#project-overview
H 2020 DANDELION Project: http://www.dandelion-europe.eu/en/about/dandelions-approach1/dandelions-approach.html

powered by Google Maps, it is a virtual tour of the entire museum that allows to fully immerse in the location and visualize the artpieces

Take a Virtual Tour of The Uffizi Gallery in Florence

from Openculture.com.

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence doesn’t particularly need an introduction, seeing that it’s one of the most widely-visited museums in Italy, the home of great artistic works from the Renaissance. If you pay the Uffizi a visit, you can see Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Dürer’s Adoration of the Magi, Caravaggio’s Bacchus, Michelangelo’s The Holy Family, and Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as a Young Man.

Or you could do the same by dialing up the Uffizi’s Virtual Tour available here. It’s essentially a Google Street View tour of the entire museum. It’s admittedly a little tedious. But if you have a lot of time and a handy floor plan, you can still immerse yourself in a collection that’s been enchanting visitors since the 18th century.

link to Uffizi Gallery website

link to Openculture.org blog

digital archaeology and virtual reconstruction help preservation of common heritage and the memory and identity of the place and its people

Reviving Palmyra in Multiple Dimensions

Reviving Palmyra in Multiple Dimensions, images, ruins and cultural memory is a book released in February 2018, by Minna Silver, Gabriele Fangi and Ahmet Denker. This is a classic example of digital archaeology and virtual reconstruction and is a beacon for the recording of international cultural heritage. It provides a comprehensive and fascinating study of this World Heritage Site in Syria, lifting it from the ruins.

This book provides a visual reconstruction of Palmyra, a World Heritage Site situated in Syria, which flourished in Greco-Roman times. Palmyra is situated in a desert oasis and served as a vibrant caravan station on the Silk Road connecting the Roman world with the East. It has been called ‘the Queen of the Desert’ and ‘Venice of the Sands’.

In 2015 – 2016 the city was conquered by ISIS who destroyed its monuments and museum, also killing several of its inhabitants. Their aim was to erase the memory and identity of the place, its people and our common heritage. However, through the use of modern technology including photogrammetry, digital imagery and 3D modelling, it has been possible to recreate the documented monuments, thus overcoming to some extent the trauma, cultural destruction and loss.
The book unveils the rediscovery of the site by the West and revives and reconstructs the ancient city through images and history. The reader is taken through the spectacular city and its past by providing the information to follow the roots and development of the site, its monuments and its people through the ages, including rulers such as Queen Zenobia. The combination of visualization and written accounts interlink the environment and its people, the monuments and archaeological small finds by using ancient written sources, old photographs, new imagery, 3D models and 3D printing.

Thus this ancient site and its past is revived in multiple dimensions.
Monuments are visualized as digitally reconstructed ruins or as complete virtual models. This text is therefore the perfect guide for readers who wish to immerse themselves visually in the history of the area and to discover more about the archaeology and its preservation using diverse methods employing modern technology.

REVIVING PALMYRA IN MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS
Images, Ruins and Cultural Memory

Contents: Introducing the memory of the place; Approaching Palmyra from air, space and by land; Revealing cities beneath cities; Individual, families and tribes in inscriptions and images; Palmyra’s destiny between Rome and Persia; The Temple of Bel at the core of Palmyra; The Triumphal Arch and the Grand Colonnade; Sacred and public spaces along the Grand Colonnade; The tombs for the eternal souls of Palmyreans; The Camp of Diocletian, the Christian Basilicas and the Arab Citadel; Appendix – The documentation of the architectural heritage by spherical photogrammetry.

Readership: ideal for all who have an interest in archaeology or the application of modern geomatics and digital techniques in its preservation. Professionals and students in archaeology, heritage and conservation, museums and related areas will find it interesting and stimulating as will anyone in geomatics involved with the application of such techniques to recording heritage.

More info – download the flyer (PDF 121 Kb)

The first project around the world about 1001 artistic projects and Creative Cities of UNESCO

A new way to connect cultures and people: The Nomad Creative Projects



The Nomad Creative Projects is a cultural  international initiative with the aim to develop
cross-cultural links around the world and showcase projects meeting and sharing
experience with foreign cultural actors, thinking on actual topics related to the concept
of culture and the presentation of new trends in the field of arts.
It wants to accelerate, catalyse, connect and communicate civil society initiatives in arts
and culture  rethinking and building the world as an open, inclusive and democratic space. 
The vision of the Nomad Creative Projects is to offer a platform on which artists and
creative cities have the opportunity to present itself in press article, photos and short
videos accessible to all audiences. 
The project , started in July 2017,has been designed by a Séverine Grosjean, a brilliant 
French freelance cultural journalist , that after several international experiences,  decided
to embark and write on new strategies, policies and initiatives aimed at making culture 
and creativity a driving force for sustainable development and urban regeneration.
For further information about the Nomad Creative Projects: 
 www.thenomadcreativeprojects.com/our-team/
facebook (The Nomad Creative Projects)
Instagram (@nomad_creative_projects) 
youtube