Digital meets Culture

call for entries, two prizes 20.000 euro each will be assigned

STARTS prize 2016: deadline 4 March 2016 / Science, Technology and the ARTS.

20,000 euros await the winners of the STARTS Prize 2016. Appointed by the European Commission, Ars Electronica is launching an international 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 is an open call for entries in conjunction with an initiative launched by the European Commission: STARTS. The name stands for innovation at the nexus of Science, Technology and the ARTS.

Two prizes – €20,000 each – will be bestowed this year:

One for artistic exploration and projects in which the artistic approach has significant potential to influence or change the way technology is deployed, developed or perceived, and
One for innovative cooperative ventures teaming up industry/technology and art (and cultural & creative sectors in general) in ways that open up new paths for innovation.

This competition specifically seeks:

Trailblazing forms of collaboration and projects essentially characterized by both technology and art; strictly artistically or strictly technologically oriented projects are not what STARTS is looking for.
Any and all artistic works and practices having to do with innovation in the areas of technology, business and/or society. This competition is not limited to a particular genre such as media art and digital art.
All forms of technological and scientific research that are inspired by art or in which artists are integrated as catalysts of new ways of seeing things. This includes but is not limited to information & communications technology.
Artists or artists’ collectives, creative professionals, researchers and companies throughout the world. This competition is not limited to citizens of EU-member states.
A project may be submitted for prize consideration simultaneously to the STARTS competition as well as a Prix Ars Electronica category (Computer Animation/Film/VFX, Digital Communities or Interactive Art).

Several special events are being planned to honor and showcase the projects singled out for recognition with a STARTS Prize:

Awards ceremony at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria September 8-12, 2016
Exhibition featuring the prizewinning projects at the 2016 Ars Electronica Festival
STARTS Forum at the 2016 Ars Electronica Festival
Exhibition featuring the prizewinning projects at the BOZAR Electronic Art Festival in Brussels, Belgium September 23-25, 2016

STARTS INITIATIVE:https ://ec .europa .eu/digital-agenda/en/ict-art-starts-platform
STARTS PRIZE: http ://starts-prize .aec .at

The entry deadline is March 4, 2016.

The main objective of the SQuAT Fest is to assist European open source projects to bring their software into the AppHub European Open Source Marketplace.

PREFORMA @ AppHub SQuAT Fest 2016

Benjamin Yousefi from Riksarkivet represented the PREFORMA project at the AppHub SQuAT Fest on January 26, 2016 in Brussels.

The main objective of the SQuAT Fest is to assist European open source projects to bring their software into the AppHub European Open Source Marketplace. In addition, we would like to understand the current state of open source software as developed by EU funded projects, and how we can support them to improve their quality assurance and governance processes.

The main recommendation that came out from the workshop were that PREFORMA should encourage the PREFORMA Suppliers to use AppHub as an additional channel to distribute the PREFORMA Conformance Checkers, documenting the possible deployment as an example of integrating the Conformance Checkers with other platforms.

The community behind AppHub is also working on best practices, code quality and OSS (Open Source Software) risk management, producing documents, such as the AppHub Charter, OSS and tools, such as, GitHubAnalyzer. The PREFORMA project should evaluate and incorporate these documents and tools where appropriate.

Download here the presentations delivered during the workshop.

About AppHub

AppHub is a non-profit marketplace aimed at facilitating the dissemination of open source software with the purpose to help European collaborative projects to implement an efficient dissemination and market outreach strategy, it helps SMEs reach a global market by providing a marketplace where business users can discover, deploy and run quality open source software packages for their information systems. The project is an H2020 project, funded in part by the European Commission, which promotes EU-funded technologies through a combination of knowledge, resources and expertise from the OW2 open source community, the Fraunhofer Fokus research institute, and UShareSoft an independent software vendor.

Heverlee (Belgium), 25-27 February 2016

Hack your Photo Heritage!

Europeana Space Photography Pilot and the Pilot coordinator KU Leuven invite you to a 3-day event targeting developers, cultural heritage professionals, designers, creative entrepreneurs, photographers and photo-amateurs: hack the massive photographic heritage content on Europeana, E-Space and other public repositories to mash them up with user-generated smartphone photos and stories, creating a new environment to experience our cultural past, using apps, websites and virtual environments.

During the Hackathon developers will have access to the vast public photographic heritage now available on resources such as Europeana (see the API’s at Europeana Labs), Wikipedia and Flickr, while at the same time having access through the Europeana Space API’s to copyright protected content to experiment with. Through the E-Space Technical Space environment API, users can login and user data can be stored together with the data from other sources. Also the JPSearch API will be available and support for similarity-based search will be provided. At the FABLAB KU Leuven, 3D-printers, laser cutters and a small joinery will be available for use, together with Oculus, Google Cardboard, Moverio and Kinect.

Learn how to tap the power of huge resources such as Europeana and Europeana Space, Flickr Commons and Wikimedia to build innovative apps re-using photographic heritage. Mix images from the past with smartphone selfies. Connect old and new generations by making apps bridging centuries. Develop web environments for teachers, educators and museum curators to bring true public access to photographic cultural heritage. Learn how to convert photo imagery to 3D-prints and new materials.

The 3 best concepts will win a trip to London for the Business Modeling Workshop! There they’ll have their ideas and business models strengthened by the expert team at REMIX, one of Europe’s leading cultural and creative entrepreneur agency and the organizers of the REMIX Summits. (Travel, accommodation and attendance fee is covered.) The team with the strongest concept and business model after the Workshop will win a 3-month intensive incubation package from REMIX and the Europeana Space Network.

Registration are still open.

Learn more:

Hackathon Website

Photography Pilot Blog

Amsterdam (The Netherlands), 14-15 April 2016

Identity Matters: enriching heritage to meet a new era / RICHES final conference

Borders blur. Disciplines merge. Barriers come down. The 21st century is a time of repositioning, and there is a key role to play for heritage. How do we (re)present ourselves, our public, our archives, our countries and our institutes?

This was the liet-motiv of RICHES final conference, presenting the project results together with inspiring keynote speakers who reflected and explored collaboratively future visions of heritage. Participation was also central, with experience of inspiring examples first hand in the city of Amsterdam: through urban safaris and visits to heritage sites, all conference participants could see best practices in action.

#IAMRICHES

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Photos courtesy of Waag. More photos on Flickr.

International keynote speakers were complemented presentations, demonstrations and workshops, all organised around themes such as connecting, self expression, participation, power, skills and crafts, food and festivities and citizenship.

Day 1: Identity Matters: How do we represent our changing selves in/with heritage?

Day 2: Matters of Identity: dissecting identity – what are the building blocks? How do we construct and reconstruct our identity through heritage?

Download the detailed Programme Booklet (PDF, 4 Mb)

See the RICHES website: http://riches-project.eu/amsterdamconference2016.html

14-15 April 2016

Volkshotel – Wibautstraat 150, 1091 GR Amsterdam

Preparations for the festival were ongoing for more than three months and the atmosphere of the event was never less than jovial and electrifyingly creative.

Hack The Book Festival: Celebrating the future of the book and cultural heritage

by Thodoris Chiotis, OCC.

The Hack The Book Festival was held on January 22-24 2016 at the Onassis Culture Centre in Athens and it was a roaring success. The Festival was twofold: it comprised of an educational workshop held under the auspices of the Europeana Space project which took place on the morning and afternoon of 22^nd of January; the titular hackathon of the Festival was inaugurated with talks by Joanna Zylinska, Gary Hall and Chris Meade on the evening of the 22^nd and unfolded throughout the 23^rd and the 24^th of January.

hack_the_book_1_Athanasios_Deligiannis_900x750

ph. Athanasios Deligiannis

Preparations for the festival were ongoing for more than three months. Participants to the event were selected from a wide pool of applicants who were invited to submit concept notes in the months leading up to the festival; the festival itself was preceded by a well-attended pre-hackathon event in which designers, programmers and artists shared their expertise and offered their mentorship to potential participants. At the hackathon itself, ideas on the concept of the book as a repository of ideas and affect, as a distribution model, as an artifact and as an interface were exchanged, tested, refined and implemented in dazzling prototypes.

The participants were asked to pitch their projects to the judges, both in public and in private, and the feedback provided helped streamline their pitches and their projects even further. The participants were also ably aided throughout the weekend by a dedicated genius bar consisting of content experts, designers, programmers and artists. The atmosphere in the festival even when time for the contestants was running out was never less than jovial and electrifyingly creative. The final prototypes displayed a significant degree of imagination, creativity, social conscience and a healthy amount of irreverence: the final prototypes presented at the pitching stage made use of open source digital cultural assets while simultaneously rethinking existing interfaces and platforms. The final results showcased not only the diversity of participants and projects, but also a real need to create spaces where creative endeavor can flourish.

#photomediations

Hack the Book website: http://www.europeana-space.eu/hackathons/open-hybrid-publishing-hackathon/

Learn even more on OCC website: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG1611/

Next, it is planned a wider event with an educational focus, possibly including European Commission speakers and representatives from Europeana and other relevant organisations.

E-Space for Education: stories from the Athens workshop

by Barbara Dierickx (PACKED)

On January 22nd 2016, the EuropeanaSpace Education team gathered in Athens. The day leading up to the Hack the Book event our partner Onassis Cultural Centre (OCC) co-hosted a public workshop, focussing on educators.

Within E-Space, bridging the gap between heritage and education is a main project focus. The project as a whole offers a wide range of services to the educational sector through its activities:

5 examples of creative re-use of digital cultural content for education
a MOOC, Massive Open Online Course, to learn what you can do with digital cultural heritage, for your research, your studies, your classrooms
6 thematic Pilots developing prototypes, that can be utilized also for educational purposes
thematic events on education and digital cultural heritage
a review of existing projects, environments and best practices dealing with digital cultural heritage content in an educational context

In this first educational workshop, we focussed on the five educational demonstrators that have been developed. These applications put theory into practice, and look at how (digital) cultural heritage may be turned into a valuable asset than can be used in a classroom. An overview of the different demonstrators is given on our thematic website: http://www.europeana-space.eu/education/.

We should make a small correction, as ‘classroom’ may actually be a too narrow description; these demonstrators may also prove functional in other settings. The team behind the demonstrator on Irish poetry and folk takes for example is looking at local libraries as a scene for the programme’s use. Sometimes public readings of said stories take place here, and the group of attending children could very well be exposed to the demonstrator application to interact more with the stories’ texts and illustrations.

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These different applications have been developed in an almost-ready modus. During the workshop, feedback on them was gathered so that the developing teams could upgrade them over the next project weeks. In order to introduce this work a bit more, the day was started with a couple of introductory keynotes that set the scene. We had project partner Thodoris Chiotis, who introduced the Cavafy Archive and its step into the digital realm. Next Prodromos Tsiavos discussed the difficulty in maintaining openness and diversity in the global MOOCs environment, and how this was handled within OCC. The story of MOOCs continued with Ignasi Labastida (University of Barcelona) who talked about the meaning of ‘open’ in education. And to close this session, Alek Tarkowski proposed a Polish project approach to going open in education (and using Creative Commons licenses).

In the next part, the focus shifted to the five E-Space demonstrators:

Photographic investigation of art works: Frederik Temmermans, Post Doc Researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel – iMinds
Irish poetry & folk tales: Ruth Montague, LGMA
Cavafy Archive demonstrator: Thodoris Chiotis, Project Manager at Cavafy Archive, Onassis Foundation
3D archeological demonstrator: Marinos Ioannides, Digital heritage Research Lab – Cyprus University of Technology
Rode altarpiece: Hembo Pagi, Estonian Ministry of Culture

They were all pitched by their developing team in terms of scope, functionality and their practical application in an educational setting – ranging from specified arts history masters to less formal interaction with primary school children. During lunchtime there was the possibility to interact with the demonstrators, and provide feedback to the teams.

In the afternoon some time was reserved for the presentation of the plans on a MOOC, created in and based on the findings of the E-Space project. This MOOC, under supervision of Professor Frederik Truyen, Faculty of Arts KU Leuven, will be released in the coming project months. The day was closed by a couple of short best practice presentations; successful examples of how heritage is used in educational settings in Europe. E-Space partner Barbara Dierickx (PACKED vzw) presented the Flemish platform Testbeeld whiwh is giving access to audiovisual heritage for teachers; Dr. Balaouras Pantelis from the Greek Academic Network showed the Greek Open Courses Program.

On May 13 2016, E-Space is planning a wider event with an educational focus. We aim to include Commission speakers and representatives from Europeana and other relevant organisations. Should you be interested in the event as a contributor or participant, do not hesitate to contact us.

a conference in Llandudno (Wales) hosts prof. Forbes as keynote speaker.

RICHES presented at Digital Past 2016 – New technologies in heritage, interpretation & outreach

Organised by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Digital Past is an annual two day conference which showcases innovative digital technologies and techniques for data capture, interpretation and dissemination of the heritage of Wales, the UK and beyond. Bringing together individuals from the commercial, public, academic, third sector and voluntary sectors, the conference aims to promote learning, discussion and debate around a range of digital technologies in current use, or in development, to record and understand the historic environment.

2016 edition takes place on 10 and 11 February.

Prof. Forbes (Coventry University), the coordinator of RICHES, will deliver a keynote speech to discuss some of the important changes which are impacting on cultural heritage in the contemporary world; research based on the work undertaken by RICHES project.

Event website: http://digitalpast2016.blogspot.co.uk/

The programme (PDF, 352 Kb)

the agreement with OAPEN helps scientists, who benefit from ERC funding, make their publications freely accessible online.

ERC supports OAPEN library for open access books

The European Research Council (ERC) and OAPEN Foundation have announced on 2^nd February 2016 their cooperation in furthering open access to academic books and book chapters. With the help of an ERC grant OAPEN will develop a tailor-made deposit service for ERC grantees and their publishers.

The OAPEN library provides a platform for the full-text dissemination of open access books from all scientific areas, in particular in social sciences and humanities. As part of the new project funded by the ERC, OAPEN will provide guidance and support to ERC grantees and their publishers to comply with ERC open access requirements for books. It will aggregate and allow the deposit of open access monographs and book chapters based on ERC funded research, provide quality assurance and dissemination of deposited publications and ensure their digital preservation.

Martin Stokhof, Chair of the ERC’s Scientific Council Working Group on Open Access, said: “Since 2014 open access is not an option for new ERC grantees, it’s a legal obligation. The agreement with OAPEN helps scientists, who benefit from our funding, make their publications freely accessible online regardless whether they are obliged to do it by their grant agreements or they wish to follow the ERC’s strong recommendation.”

Eelco Ferwerda, director of OAPEN Foundation, said: “We are delighted to work with the European Research Council to provide our deposit service for OA books. The ERC emphasises the need for open access to peer reviewed monographs and edited collections, and we hope our partnership will help to accelerate the transition to open access for books.”

The new agreement reaffirms the ERC’s commitment to open access and to ensuring that the fruits of the research it funds can be freely accessed, read and used, both by scientists and by the public. Similar agreements have been already signed with key open access repositories in life sciences (Europe PubMed Central) and physical sciences and engineering (arXiv), covering most of scientific domains and publication formats.

Under the current EU research framework programme Horizon 2020, beneficiaries of ERC grants must deposit, in a suitable open access repository, the published version or final accepted manuscript of any peer-reviewed scientific publication relating to the results of their funded research. This includes peer-reviewed monographs and book chapters. Publications have to be deposited as soon as possible and at the latest upon publication. Open access must be ensured within six months of publication; for publications in social sciences and humanities a delay of up to twelve months is acceptable. Background The European Research Council, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the first European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. Every year, it selects and funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run ambitious projects based in Europe. The ERC strives to attract top researchers from anywhere in the world to come to Europe. To date, the ERC has funded more than 5,000 top researchers at various stages of their careers. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Since January 2014, the ERC President is Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon. The ERC has a budget of over €13 billion for the years 2014-2020. It is part of the EU research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, for which European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Carlos Moedas is responsible.

OAPEN promotes and supports open access for academic books. OAPEN was developed as a EU funded project in its eContentplus programme (2008-2011), and continued as a Foundation in 2011. The OAPEN Library was launched in 2010 as a platform for full text hosting, deposit, dissemination and preservation of OA books. The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), winner of the IFLA/Brill Open Access Award 2015, was established as a separate activity in 2012, in order to improve the discovery of OA books, and to establish a qualitycontrolled list of academic OA book publishers. OAPEN reaches the majority of open access book publishers through its two platforms, and provides its deposit service to research funders with OA mandates for monographs. Partners include the Wellcome Trust, the Austrian Science Fund, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

For more information:

ERC Scientific Council Working Group on Open Access https://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/organisation-and-working-groups/working-groups/working-group-open-access

OAPEN library for open access books http://www.oapen.org/

ERC deposit service http://www.oapen.org/services?page=ercservice&subpage=ercreq

Press contacts Marcin Mońko (Press and Communication adviser) Tel: +32 (0)2 296 66 44 erc-press@ec.europa.eu

Madeleine Drielsma (Press and Communication adviser) Tel: +32 (0)2 298 76 31 erc-press@ec.europa.eu

OAPEN press contact: Eelco Ferwerda (Director) Tel: +31(0)629565168 e.ferwerda@oapen.org

The three games have stunning graphics and the beautiful effects added to the positive user experience.

E-Space Games Pilot user testing

by Rosemary Cisneros, Coventry University

The Europeana Space Games Pilot held its first user tests Wednesday, January 27th 2016 at Coventry University. Participants met at the Institute for Creative Enterprise (ICE), a building that brings together researchers, graduates, businesses and enterprise to support professionals to collaborate, share ideas and to help grow the region’s cultural and creative sectors- a fitting venue for the tests. The users played with the three games developed by the Pilot and offered feedback on engagement and entertainment and also discussed the tools in relation to education, museums, cultural heritage and tourism.

The users played with three different and exciting tools: The Educational game which presents players with a self-portrait painting from the Europeana archive, the Creative game which allows the user to create a collage from provided footage from the archive, and the Casual game where the player is presented with a classical style painting covered in dust and tasked with restoring the painting.

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The three games have stunning graphics and the beautiful effects added to the positive user experience. The discussions offered insight into the friendliness of the user-interface and helped the pilot asses the responsiveness, stability, functionality and ease of interaction with thegames. In summary, testing the three games was a crucial activity to ensure that our games are successful in the highly competitive landscape of apps and games. Usability testing has never been more exciting and the pilot’s games are adding to today’s mobile game ecosystems.

Photos courtesy of Coventry University

Images from Europeana:

Cleopatra’s Banquet | Lairesse, Gerard de / Self-portrait (1887) | Gogh, Vincent van

Berlin, 11-21 February 2016

Berlin International Film Festival

Source: https://www.berlinale.de/en/das_festival/festivalprofil/profil_der_berlinale/index.html

Berlin: an exciting, cosmopolitan cultural hub that never ceases to attract artists from around the world. A diverse cultural scene, a critical public and an audience of film-lovers characterise the city. In the middle of it all, the Berlinale: a great cultural event and one of the most important dates for the international film industry. More than 330,000 sold tickets, more than 20,000 professional visitors from 128 countries, including more than 3,700 journalists: art, glamour, parties and business are all inseparably linked at the Berlinale.

The entire world of film

The public programme of the Berlin International Film Festival shows about 400 films per year, mostly international or European premieres. Films of every genre, length and format find their place in the various sections: great international cinema in the Competition, independent and art house in Panorama, films for young audiences in Generation, new discoveries and promising talents from the German film scene in Perspektive Deutsches Kino, avant garde, experimental and unfamiliar cinematography in the Forum and Forum Expanded, and an exploration of cinematic possibilities in Berlinale Shorts. The Berlinale Special, including Berlinale Special Gala, is showing new and extraordinary productions and honours great cinema personalities. Berlinale Special Series, which began in 2015, presents selected international series. The programme is rounded out by a Retrospective as well as an Homage, which focuses on the œuvre of a great personality of cinema, curated by the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen. Beginning in 2013, the Retrospective expanded to include presentations of Berlinale Classics. They show current restorations of film classics as well as rediscovered films.

Furthermore the Berlinale has regularly organised a programme of special presentations that open up new perspectives, provide insight into key themes, make new connections and explore realms where film intersects with other creative disciplines. Food, pleasure and the environment – these are the topics that lie at the centre of the Culinary Cinema. Berlinale Goes Kiez is travelling from arthouse cinema to arthouse cinema within the city to present selected films from the Berlinale programme and NATIVe – A Journey into Indigenous Cinema is devoted to the cinematic story-telling of Indigenous peoples worldwide.

The European Film Market in the Martin-Gropius-Bau

The film industry at the Berlinale

The Berlin International Film Festival is a source of inspiration in the global film community: film programmes, workshops, panel discussions, joint projects with other social and cultural actors – the forms of cooperation and the possibilities for creative interaction are countless.

The most important meeting point is the European Film Market (EFM). Around 400 companies and more than 8,000 professionals from 95 countries build and foster contacts here, strengthen their position in the industry or negotiate film rights.

The Berlinale Co-Production Market, affiliated to the EFM, offers fertile ground for international co-productions.

Berlinale Talents brings high profile professionals attending the Berlinale to workshops and discussions with 300 promising young film talents from all over the world. Both sides benefit. The talents profit from the experience of the professionals, who in turn gain fresh ideas from taking part.

The World Cinema Fund (WCF) provides financial support to film projects in countries with weak film infrastructure thereby helping strengthen the regions’ position on the international film market.

The Berlinale Residency programme offers international directors a grant to come to Berlin for several months. Working in close contact with individually selected mentors and market experts, the directors can take a decisive step toward placing their next film project on the way to a successful theatrical release.

The close connection between the festival and market is a unique characteristic of the Berlinale and always results in exceptional synergies.

Further information

Event website: https://www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html