Digital meets Culture

Dundee, 25th November – 2nd December 2023

Mammary Mountain: the new exhibition coming to NEoN Digital Arts

The new innovative exhibition Mammary Mountain in Keiller Centre, Dundee

A new interactive exhibition coming to NEoN Digital Arts Workshop & Event space, at Keiller Centre, Dundee, on 25th November.

NEoN Digital Arts is a charitable organisation whose aims are to advance the understanding and accessibility of digital and technology-driven art forms and encourage high quality within this medium’s production.

Mammary Mountain by Tara Baoth Mooney, Maf’j Alvarez & Camille Baker, is an intimate performance that explores dis-ease within the body through the experience of breast cancer.

It is set in a doctor’s office. As ‘patients,’ the audience wears a special haptic jacket, sits in a bespoke chair shaped like mammary glands, and uses a VR headset to experience this unique performance.

The piece is further explored through illustrations and field recordings of Tara Baoth Mooney, which were created while going through treatment. Mooney recorded the steps from the bed in her room to the radiotherapy department, recording the machines inside and the birds and water outside. These recorded sounds and drawings have been merged with the strong visual 3D landscape created by Maf’j Alvarez through VR and embodied through a garment which vibrates in areas of the body affected by pain or discomfort. The interaction design and narrative framework, story editing and workshop development, as well as overall project production, has been done by Camille Baker.

This VR immersion exposes the idea of dis-ease within the body and the body’s relationship to the broader context of the land. The artists hope this work ignites new public engagement, ultimately resulting in a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the experience.

All information about the exhibition and the artists can be found here

The exhibition premiere coincides with this year’s 16 days of Activism campaign against Gender-Based Violence. It commences on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and ends on 10 December, Human Rights Day, indicating that violence against women is the most pervasive breach of human rights worldwide. NEoN is supporting this year’s 16 days of Activism campaign by presenting work and creative practices that use digital tools or comment on today’s complex digital relationships. In particular, the interest is in work that uses digital/technology-led experiences that empower women and give voice to their often hidden struggles.

Public presentation on 31 October 2023 at Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra

RIGENERA VOLTERRA RIGENERA: public event at Palazzo dei Priori

The case study on Volterra22, conducted in the frame of the UNCHARTED project, was presented in Volterra at Palazzo dei Priori on 30 October 2023 in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the historical City Hall, as the presence of the Mayor of the city Giacomo Santi and the Counselor of Cultures Dario Danti.

Representatives of the project participated in the event with a presentation of the work done and the results achieved via interviews and a public questionnaire open to all the citizenship: Antonella Fresa and Giulia Fiorentini of Promoter Srl, responsible of the study, and Prof. João Teixeira Lopes of the University of Porto.

Representatives of the local stakeholders and private citizens intervened in the debate and the book with full documentation of the study results was distributed to the participants.

The book with the full study about the Case of Volterra22 is available also online and downloadable from the UNCHARTED website in Italian and English versions.

University of Manouba, September 30, 2022

Portuguese INCULTUM pilot on Al-Sabîl – Revue d`Histoire, d`Archéologie et d`Architecture Maghrébines

The latest paper about the Portuguese pilot of the INCULTUM project has been published in French in the journal Al-Sabîl – Revue d`Histoire, d`Archéologie et d`Architecture Maghrébines, from the University of La Manouba in Tunisia.

The articles in this special thematic issue were presented in a Tunisian-Portuguese study day with the theme: The spirit of place and the organization of space in the Mediterranean: encounters of history, archaeology, architecture and landscape (L’esprit des lieux et l’organisation de l’espace en Méditerranée: rencontres de l’histoire, de l’archéologie, de l’architecture et du paysage).

The event took place on September 30, 2022 at the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities, University of Manouba (H.-H. Abdelwaheb Room).

Prof. Desidério Batista of the University of Algarve presented the case study about Campina de Faro, addressed in the INCULTUM pilot, with a paper titled: The landscape and the hydraulic heritage as the basis for cultural tourim (Le paysage et le patrimoine hydraulique comme base du tourisme culturel).

The link to the Al-Sabîl journal is available here.

Scopello, September 26-30, 2023

GAL ELIMOS at the Jazz’Inn Festival 2023

Innovation is often born from motivated individuals, not hierarchical structures. This belief led to the creation of Jazz’Inn, a unique open innovation format introduced in 2017 by Fondazione Ampioraggio. Jazz’Inn has been at the forefront of connecting companies, public administrations, investors, start-ups, innovative SMEs, research centers, professionals, and tech buyers in a slow and informal networking environment, set in the picturesque landscapes of Italian villages. This extraordinary event has fostered the sharing of groundbreaking ideas for planned investments through collaborative workshops and friendly encounters.

The fusion of innovation and culture in a rural setting has paved the way for a slow, tangible form of networking among innovators and the market. This phenomenon has been aptly dubbed “slow dating for innovation”.

GAL ELIMOS, in collaboration with Ampioraggio Foundation, organized the second stage of the 2023 Jazz’Inn Festival, which took place in the village of Scopello from September 26 to September 30, 2023, presenting a comprehensive program of activities under the name Smartland.

The full article about Jazz’Inn and the participation of GAL ELIMOS is available here for download.

GAL ELIMOS participates in the Rural Development Program for the Sicilian region

New strategy for GAL ELIMOS

In recent months, GAL ELIMOS, which stands for Local Action Group, has been working intensively on drafting the new strategy for the year 2024-2027.

GALs, or Local Action Groups, are intermediary bodies that represent the collective interests of specific territorial areas. Their primary role is to implement integrated programs as development agencies, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, by decentralizing the management of Structural Funds.

GALs are tasked with implementing the “Quality of Life in Rural Areas and Diversification of Rural Economy” and the “Leader Approach Implementation” of the Rural Development Program in the Sicilian region. They follow an integrated, bottom-up, and multisectoral approach to achieve this. Their activities include providing support for the establishment and growth of micro-enterprises and promoting tourism initiatives.

As GAL ELIMOS is focused on crafting the new strategy, it incorporated the INCULTUM pilot project and, more importantly, the entire concept of INCULTUM. The aim is to secure funding through European funds not only to complete the INCULTUM project but also to sustain the idea in the future. GAL ELIMOS has developed measures related to the
quality of life in rural areas, essential services for the rural economy and population, village development and revitalization, and the protection and enhancement of rural, cultural, and archaeological heritage.

The full article about the new strategy is available here for download.

Museo delle Marionette in Palermo, October 30, 2023

Food is culture

As part of the activities of the Sicilian pilot of INCULTUM project, on October 30, 2023, an interesting conference titled “Food is Culture” took place at the Museo delle Marionette in Palermo, near Piazza Marina.

The keynote speaker for this congress was Massimo Montanari, who, until 2019, held the position of full professor of Medieval History at the School of Letters and Cultural Heritage at the University of Bologna, where he also taught Food History and directed the European Master’s program in “History and Culture of Food.” He also teaches at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo.

More than 80 people attended the event, with the majority being students from the master’s degree programs in cultural heritage valorization and Eno gastronomic communication.

This event was made possible thanks to the close collaboration being fostered between the GAL ELIMOS, partner of INCULTUM project, and the University of Palermo.

The full article about the event is available here for download.

Picture of the speaker at the event.

Galera, 4th November 2023

INCULTUM participated in the interpretative route through the Acequia de la Alpanchía

Last November 4 2023, the Spanish pilot of the INCULTUM project participated in the interpretative route through the Acequia de la Alpanchía, in Galera, municipality of the Altiplano de Granada.

The Spanish pilot of INCULTUM is led by University of Granada, coordinator of the INCULTUM project.

The activity was organized by the Vegas del Conocimiento project, the Alpanchía Association and the City Council of Galera, with whom the University of Granada is collaborating from INCULTUM.

Forty people participated in the tour, in which they could appreciate all the values of the irrigation ditches and meadows, accompanied by the main experts of all these aspects: the irrigators.

Some pictures of the event.

Written by Helena Nogué (CRDI - Ajuntament de Girona), it is the second blogpost of EUreka3D project and it showcases the ways people used to

Optical views: a way to travel through Europe – a new blogpost on Europeana

img. from Europeana website

As part of the EUreka3D project, a blogpost authored by Helena Nogué (CRDI – Ajuntament de Girona) was recently published on Europeana.

The blogpost showcases how optical views were used in 18th and early 19th century by people who were not able to travel in order to see the most famous cities and capitals of that time and to satisfy their hunger for knowledge.

Read the blogpost here.

EUreka3D project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

On 2-3 November 2023, the Europeana ecosystem met in the twice-a-year gathering, hosted this time at Eötvös Loránd University in Múzeum körút in Budapest, Hungary

EUreka3D presented in the Fall edition of Europeana Aggregators Forum 2023

The Europeana ecosystem and network of Aggregators and partners met for the second edtion of 2023 Europeana Aggregators Forum, held as an hybrid event in Budapest and online. In this occasion updates on EUreka3D development were presented to colleague institutions, partners and Europeana aggregators by the Project Coordinator Antonella Fresa, vice president of Photoconsortium.

View presentation (PDF, 0.5 Mb)

During the Forum, a session “What if…?” – Gathering Aggregators’ expectations and requirements towards the Data Space for Cultural Heritage discussed about the development of the Data Space for Cultural Heritage, which EUreka3D is also contributing to by sharing new high quality 3D data and supporting the development of services, tools and standards.

Additionally, a focus on Europeana’s Twin It! campaign presented the status of progress for the campaign to create a collection of iconic 3D cultural heritage items from the Member States in Europeana, including a presentation of upcoming Europeana publishing guidelines for 3D contentEUreka3D – EAF Meeting Autumn 2023, also basing on the requirement and developments of 3D-related projects like EUreka3D.

EUreka3D project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

understanding the change that the project brings to its community and how value is created for beneficiaries

EUreka3D impact assessment, supported with the Europeana Impact Playbook

all images in this post courtesy of Europeana.

In the committments of EUreka3D project, that is focused on supporting the digital transformation process in the cultural heritage sector, a major task is about reflecting on the impact and the increased knowledge that the project delivered to individuals, organisations and other stakeholder communities engaged with the project and involved in our capacity building programme.

The methodology established in EUreka3D makes use of the Europeana Impact Playbook, and in this light we’ve been very happy to attend a series of 4 Impact Assessment workshops run by Europeana in the Fall 2023. We followed The Change Pathway, equipping us with the necessary skills to collect, analyse, respond and share data from our project activities to the benefit of our stakeholders.

The Europeana Initiative started talking about impact over a decade ago, with a long-term goal to support the cultural heritage sector in understanding how their work creates value for their organization and in the world surrouding them. The Europeana Impact Playbook has been designed as a practical tool for impact-focused project design and impact assessment. It sets out an interactive approach that helps design for impact, plan an impact assessment, collect and analyse the data, draft impact narratives and evaluate the taken approaches.

It emphasises that thinking about, and measuring, impact, is not a one-off action, but a flexible and ongoing process that can benefit from in the long-term as you embed impact thinking in your processes and organisational culture.

In the course of Winter 2023 starting on 8th November, Europeana organizes a series of open Impact Cafés for any professional in the cultural sector to ask questions and to learn more about impact design and assessment.

EUreka3D project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.