Digital meets Culture

Validating formats, a prerequisite for preserving digital objects

This publication is intended as a practical guidebook based on lessons learnt and the explanation of problems to be addressed when planning the long-term preservation of a cultural digital archive, with particular regard to the phase of verification of the conformance of file formats stored in the archive. In order to provide a useful tool, the structure of the PREFORMA Handbook is conceived as a combination of critical considerations about the steps that must be taken into account by the archive managers, together with the guidelines on how to use the PREFORMA tools for running the actual conformance checking.

The Handbook aims to provide an overview of the background of digital preservation, the problems that PREFORMA addresses with its tools, how DPManager, MediaConch and veraPDF contribute to solve these problems and, at a complementary practical level, information about the installation of the tools and the usage of the various functionalities of the software.

The publication closes with an afterword that looks at the future of digital preservation, to trigger the discussion about the new challenges, posed for example by the emergence of new formats and new content, such as 3D digitisations, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) scenarios, linked data and geo-referencing.

We expect the PREFORMA Handbook to be offered as a critical instrument to decision-makers in cultural heritage institutions, to support them in the analysis of problems and the identification of viable solutions, and as a technical reference to managers of digital archives and developers, to offer them guidance on how to use the PREFORMA tools.

Download here the PREFORMA Handbook.

The PREFORMA project is a pre-commercial procurement project supported by the European Commission in the ambit of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

Artists at all stages of their careers are encouraged to apply, by 12th November

QueerTech.io 2018: call for works

Queertech.io is calling for digital and new media works from queer identifying artists. Be part of the ongoing conversation about #QueerTech.

Curated by the Queertech.io artist collective and Midsumma Festival, works selected will be premiered online and offline across multiple sites at Midsumma Festival 2018, including RMIT INTERSECT SPARE ROOM & LIGHTSCAPES program, and on Testing Grounds Experimental Video System. A selection of highlights will be screened at ACMI ART+FILM 2 February 2018.

Now more than ever, queer voices are vital to a continued socio-political discourse surrounding representation in a digital landscape. Queertech.io showcases a broad cross-section of the innovative, poignant and queer-as-hell works emerging from diverse queer communities.

In the same way that the glitch cracks the hyperreal veneer of digital media to reveal its underlying architecture, ‘queer’ is a strategy that reveals the workings of the power structures of normalcy. The glitch is not an error but an artifact of the materiality of the system. It takes work to maintain the veneer. Indeed, there is no single queer strategy. That is the point – it is a diverse range of attitudes and positions that resist (or simply ignore) standardising regulation.

Recognising that all technical decisions are political, #QueerTech artistic interventions evade arbitrary normative practices within digital culture. (If one wants to ascribe to a unifying political goal…) #QueerTech art practices occupy virtual spaces as ‘utopic futurity’, as an extension of the queer body like a virtual mental prosthesis.

In 2017, Queertech.io included works from artists in ten countries and spanned video works, games, gifs, 3D models, animations and interactive works. After premiering at Midsumma Festival 2017, the Queertech.io collection toured nationally and internationally.

QUEERTECH.IO = ART(URL, IRL); CALL FOR WORKS BY 12 NOV: http://queertech.io/submit/

Budapest (Hungary), 28-29 November 2017

Muzeum@Digit international conference

This year’s MUZEUM@DIGIT will be special as we celebrate the 5^th conference since the start in 2013. The conference has become an important event in the Hungarian and international museum sector, hundreds of museum professionals have participated so far.

All of this could happen because MUZEUM@DIGIT offers a range of professional learning opportunities: plenary sessions, project demonstrations, workshops, informal networking and commercial exhibits. The main goal of the conference is to share and discuss the perspectives and trends of modern digital museums and museum digitization regarding the future plans of this field.

MUZEUM@DIGIT draws a diverse group of participants from many different specialities in all types of museums and other cultural and heritage institutions. While speakers share valuable expertise and experience, participants can gain new ideas and gather great insights.

This year our topics include:

Digital Strategy of Heritage Institutions
museum information management systems
preserving audiovisual collections
linked data
media in heritage
pop-up museums
exhibitions and digitization

MUZEUM@DIGIT is hosted by the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest.

28-29 November 2017

The plenary conference sessions will take place in the Ceremonial Hall of the Hungarian National Museum on the second floor.

The registration for the conference is open until 15 November!

More info, programme and registration: http://ommik.hu/index.php/en/muzeum-digit-eng

Karlsruhe (Germany), 19-20 October 2017

Empowering Democracy through Culture – Digital Tools for Culturally Competent Citizens

4th Council of Europe Platform Exchange on Culture and Digitisation

The 4th Platform Exchange on Culture and Digitisation, being organised by the Council of Europe in cooperation with ZKM at the ZKM headquarters in Karlsruhe, from 19-20 October, will try to reveal the underexploited potential of Culture, Arts and Science as a strong resource for empowering democracy for culturally competent citizens. Its overall aim will be to raise member States’ awareness of the role of Culture, Arts and Science in addressing populism, fake news, xenophobia and undemocratic ideological political movements in Europe. In so doing, it will focus on various digital cultural tools used by artists, cultural practitioners and scientists to deal with current developments. It will highlight the power of European cultural, arts, technological and scientific connections that have grown over the past centuries and are an infinite resource, outliving undemocratic political or ideological movements.

More info: https://www.coe.int/en/web/culture-and-heritage/karlsruhe

The rise of ideological political movements and the success of populist parties in Europe are challenging the resilience of democracy. In many parts of the world, Europe remains a beacon of democratic progress. However, recently many societies seem to be less protective of their pluralistic and democratic values and more accepting of populism and its anti-establishment political forces which offer simple solutions to complex problems, invoke the proclaimed “will” of “the people” and the moral authority therefore to stifle opposition, to take over state institutions and, when it suits, to bypass existing democratic constraints. Populists’ battery of machinery includes “fake news”, constant references to xenophobia and their ability to exploit public anxieties over migration.

While populism seeks to exclude the diversity of voices and thus damages democracy, Culture, Arts and the Sciences on the other hand have been instrumental in conserving and transmitting democracy’s ethos and the spirit of democratic values. In this respect, digitisation plays an innovative role in the spreading of democratic messages conveyed by cultural and artistic tools. Digitisation creates a unique virtual public space that empowers individuals to produce and distribute their work unimpeded by gatekeepers.

The original metal model is the first historical reconstruction of an entire city in three dimensions, and now it is going digital.

3D model – Relief Model of 1850 Geneva

The Relief Model of 1850 Geneva is a 30sm metallic model of the city when it was still enclosed by three rows of fortifications. The model was completed in 1896, after 18 years of study and labour, by a team of goldsmiths under the direction of the architect Auguste Magnin. It is the first historical reconstruction of an entire city in three dimensions.

In 2011, a consortium of engineers and historians working on a digital copy of the Relief Model discovered that the model’s geometric precision was exceptional for the time of its creation. Out of this discovery came the project of using the Relief Model to create a 3D digital model of 1850 Geneva, perfectly matched to the official cadastre and with textures, vegetation and landscapes of that era. Thanks to the long, meticulous labour of 50 specialists from nine professions and to innovative digital technology, we can now visit 1850 Geneva on the Internet: www.geneva1850.ch (requires a desktop and Adobe Flash Player – the next version will be html 5 and responsive).

More information:

Association gE-story
c/o Christian HALLER SA
Rue du Lievre 4
CH-1224 Les Acacias-Geneva
SWITZERLAND
info@ge-story.ch
tel: +41 22 827 16 40
www.geneva1850.ch

Call: ideation workshop in Helsinki – How can we create new interfaces to heritage collections of social digital photography

The Collecting Social Photo project is happy to invite creative participants for a workshop in Helsinki, in November 2017, where we will develop prototype interfaces for social digital photography collections. The purpose of the workshop is to ideate together around new ways of disseminating photocollections in the age of social media photography. The project will cover travel inside Europe.

Collecting Social Photo is a three year Nordic research project. The main goal is to develop new work practices for collecting and disseminating the ephemeral everyday pictures in heritage institutions. The project is hosted by Nordiska museet/Nordic Museum in Sweden, the other partners are Aalborg City Archives, Denmark, The Finnish Museum og Photography, Helsinki and Stockholm regional Museum, Sweden.

About the workshop(s )

Prototyping collections interfaces for social digital photography – i

The research project Collecting Social Photo will host a workshop series exploring new ways of displaying the networked, assembled and volatile social digital photograph by heritage institutions for their stakeholders. The first ideation workshop will take place on November 23–24, 2017, at the The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland. This will be followed by a second workshop, a hackathon, in March 2018, Stockholm, Sweden. Our facilitator for the two workshops is Facilitator: Risto Sarvas, Futurice. In both workshops we will have technicians as well as people from arts, heritage and commercial sector.

Workshop 1: Open call for participation – let’s do this together!

We are inviting 3–4 individuals, professionals or students from heritage, arts, commercial and academic sectors around Europe. Join us for two days in Helsinki, November 23–24. We start with half day of introduction to the project, the social digital photograph and it’s challenges for memory institutions, and presentations of participants. Then we will host a full day of ideation workshop. If your application is accepted the project will pay your air fare and hotel, as well as a speaker’s fee.

Problem

The problem we will attempt to solve together: How can we create new interfaces to heritage collections of social digital photography, that consider:

The character of the social digital photograph, i.e. volatile, assemblages, networked etc.
The mission of the institutions
The need to invite stakeholders to dialog, participation and co-creation
The need to merge collecting and disseminating
Legal and ethical issues
The ecosystem of the social digital photograph
Existing databases and interfaces

We are looking at producing creative prototypes that innovate around user involvement and the way we collect and disseminate social digital photography. The prototypes will be openly shared with the international museum/archival communities, along with a project report from the Collecting Social Photo project.

Who should join?

If you’re interested in…

Contributing to an active and important research project and learning about social digital photography as cultural heritage
Gain new experiences and insights in a rapidly developing area
Sharing ideas about the best ways to use digital technologies in humanities research
Working collaboratively in diverse teams to tackle research challenges
Making new friends and connections

Contact

Please adress questions to:
Kajsa Hartig, Nordiska museet/Nordic museum, kajsa.hartig@nordiskamuseet.se
Anni Wallenius, The Finnish Museum of Photography, anni.wallenius@fmp.fi

Apply

Deadline for application: October 15, 2017.

Application form >> see here http://collectingsocialphoto.nordiskamuseet.se/workshop-call-for-participation/

Terms and conditions
By accepting the invitation you agree to actively join and contributing to the two days of workshop. You are expected to make a 15 minute presentation about your current work. You agree that the outcomes from the project is openly shared with all participants to further develop on.

The project will book your flights and accommodation. Expenses for transfer to airport, and speaker’s fee, will be reimbursed only through invoice.

About us

Collecting Social Photo is a three year research project aiming at developing new recommendations for Nordic heritage organisations around collecting and disseminating social digital photography. The project will also develop prototype interfaces for collecting and disseminating this type of photography. The project has now teamed up with Futurice, Helsinki, to organize a series of workshops, where we, in cross disciplinary groups, will explore innovative interfaces for social digital photography collecting and collections.

About the Collecting Social Photo project: http://collectingsocialphoto.nordiskamuseet.se/about
About Futurice: www.futurice.com

images: Image: Visualizations: Left, Kencf0618, source Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kencf0618FacebookNetwork.jpg. Right: Martin Grandjean, source Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Social_Network_Analysis_Visualization.png

Milan (Italy), 7-8 December 2017

European Culture Forum 2017 – registrations open

The European Culture Forum is a biennial flagship event organised by the European Commission to raise the profile of European cultural cooperation, to bring together cultural sectors’ key players and to debate on EU culture policy and initiatives. Its 2017 edition will also mark the official launch of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, the thematic EU year devoted to our common cultural assets and all their aspects.

The event, for the first time outside of Brussels, will take place at Superstudio in the booming creative neighbourhood of Tortona in Milan. This extraordinary event venue, once a bicycle factory and then a place for fashion publishing and art created by a renowned Italian art director Flavio Lucchini in the 1980s, will provide an inspiring and thought-provoking decorum for lively discussions, unexpected meetings and fruitful exchanges.

Can culture help to tackle European and global challenges? Does cultural heritage matter to Europeans? How can culture in cities and regions help to shape more cohesive and inclusive societies? Come to Milan to discuss, listen, think and get inspired.

More info, registration: https://ec.europa.eu/culture/event/forum-2017_en

A Game Jam is also organized in conjunction with the Forum. The Game Jam, organised in cooperation with the Video Game Museum of Rome, welcomes developers and students of every competence and skill level: we are looking for passion and new ideas. For those interested in participating, please send an email to direzione@vigamus.com with your details and area of expertise.

Bogotà (Colombia), 7-30 March 2018

ALCHEMIC BODY | FIRE . AIR . WATER . EARTH

ALCHEMIC BODY | FIRE . AIR . WATER . EARTH is an exhibition of contemporary art, an opportunity for international artists to exhibit their works in the blooming Bogotà arts scene, destination of curators and collectors from all over the world. The exhibition is focused on the concept of transformation, starting from the alchemical processes, that aim to purify the nature elements: earth, air, water and fire. The alchemists, recognized as the ancestors of modern chemists, worked to discover the way the world is made and to modify its structure. The mysterious practice of alchemy always influenced the art and the artists from all the centuries. Alchemists and artists are fascinated by the concept of transformation and they both work to discover and create new possibile worlds. We invite artists to share their researches about the natural elements and the creative processes of mixing and changing, using the body as field of artistic transformation.

Image courtesy of Elena Anrgrill.

ALCHEMIC BODY | FIRE . AIR . WATER . EARTH, International photography, painting, installation, video-art and performance art festival, was hosted in Bogotà (Colombia), at Jorge Jurado Gallery, from November 01 to November 30, 2017 and a second edition will be organized from March 07 to March 30, 2018

The events are open to photography, video art, painting, installation/sculpture and performing art.

More: http://www.itsliquid.com/call-alchemic-body-fire-air-water-earth-bogota-2017.html

Porto (Portugal), 23-25 January 2018

EUDAT conference 2018: Putting the EOSC vision into practice

After the success of the previous EUDAT conference in Amsterdam which brought together more than 300 participants, we are ready to kick-off 2018 with the EUDAT conference “Putting the EOSC vision into practice“.

The conference takes place in the stunning location of Porto, Portugal from the 23rd to the 25th of January 2018.

Why join?
The conference will:

Discuss the progress of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the European Data Infrastructure (EDI) and the contribution of EUDAT as well as other infrastructures to these two initiatives;
Showcase the latest trends in data infrastructure and data management solutions for research;
Demo the solutions developed by EUDAT to address researchers and research communities’ data management needs, through concrete pilots;
Inform about the concrete opportunities offered by the newly established EUDAT Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI) to the service providers and research communities.

Additionally, it will give you the opportunity to showcase your work to an audience of community decision-makers and data managers, scientists and research communities, policy-makers, e-Infrastructure projects, research infrastructures and ESFRI projects during a poster & demo session (Submissions open until 30 November 2017).

Finally, it will host a set of co-located workshops covering different topics and disciplines to complement the main programme. The co-located workshops will be announced soon!

Curious about the programme? A sneak preview is available here. More information will be available in the upcoming weeks.

Mark the dates in your agenda and start planning your trip to Porto. Registration is open: make sure you register by 17 November 2017 to benefit from the early-bird rate!

Berlin (Germany), 4th December 2017

First meet-up of European GLAM Hackathon organisers

Invitation: First meet-up of European GLAM Hackathon organisers in Berlin
Date: 04th of December 2017 from 10 to 15
Venue: Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 in 10963 Berlin, Germany
Host: the organisers of Coding da Vinci (DDB, digiS and WMDE)

After many years of immense efforts to digitize cultural heritage throughout Europe and make it both visible and accessible it is about time to celebrate the achieved treasures in a Union wide range of events, projects and conferences. The EU commission has thus decided to declare an European Year for Cultural Heritage in 2018. As the European Year for Cultural Heritage emerges it becomes more and more important to show the potentials of big cultural heritage data to science, art and creative industries. Hackathons are events where coders in the time of a weekend gather together to “hack” (= developing code) ideas based on data available.

Coding da Vinci, the art & culture hackathon, was founded 2014 by Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Servicestelle Digitalisierung Berlin, Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland & Wikimedia Deutschland. It provides a wide range of hands on products revealing the potential of cultural heritage in applications ready to use. Since 2014 Coding da Vinci has been held 3 times in Germany. At this point, we would like to share experience with other hackathon organizers and improve our format and for this reason the first meet-up is organized on the 4th December.

Right now we are running the fourth year of Coding Da Vinci: the Kick-Off is 21st of October and the award ceremony at 2nd of December. It will scale up 2018 by having up to 4 parallel editions, one in Rhein/Main area; in Munich; in Leipzig and one in Hamburg, empowered by the national European Year of Cultural Heritage coordinator “ Deutsche Nationalkomitee für Denkmalschutz ”.

The meet up is organized following the award ceremony of the hackathon (which will take place on 2nd December at the same location).

An idea for 2018

For the coming year we aim together with Europeana to forge a pan European network of existing hackathons focussing on GLAM: The Coding da Vinci for Europe – Network (worktitle). Inviting its members to develop common quality standards and a toolkit to hold hackathons on cultural heritage data enrolling diverse target groups. The goal is to enhance reuse of cultural heritage data both for leisure and for economic purposes. EUROPEANA is already offering big cultural heritage data. But we need to convince more institutions, their stakeholders and the wider audience that the digitized treasures are valuable and searched raw material for science, citizen science, art, creative industries and joyful encounter for everybody by showing them the awesome range of what could be created out of it.
Some information on Coding da Vinci as it differs from regular hackathons:

1. Coding da Vinci focusses on free licensed data from cultural heritage institutions (GLAM)
2. Coding da Vinci fosters the production of open licensed art & culture applications, many of them aiming for youngsters as target group.
3. Coding da Vinci invites GLAM to present their data and challenges to the coders present
4. Coding da Vinci invites coders to develop applications based on the presented data following the convenient challenges. The majority of the 100 – 150 participating coders and designers per event are students occasionally professional developers and minors.
5. Coding da Vinci has a threefold structure starting with a kick-off to form teams and ideas – a sprint to develop ready products such as apps, websites … – and a award ceremony to present the products under open license and assign the prizes to the winning ones
6. Coding da Vinci is performed by a mixed team presenting the GLAM und coding community alike
7. Coding da Vinci is regionalizing its events to foster deeper relation building in between GLAM and coder community in the region
8. Coding da Vinci is providing a presentation of all data (more than 100 datasets within 3 year) and all product-projects (more than 50 projects) on its website .

Please read more in detail on Coding da Vinci: https://codingdavinci.de/about/

Get in touch to join the meet-up:

Barbara Fischer / Kuratorin für Kulturpartnerschaften

via Twitter: @fischerdata

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin

Tel. (030) 219 158 26-(0)44

http://wikimedia.de

barbara.fischer @ wikimedia.de