Digital meets Culture

5th UCLG Culture Summit, Dublin, 28 November - 1 December 2023

The fifth UCLG Culture Summit will be held in Dublin (Republic of Ireland) from 28 November to 1 December 2023.

Nancy Duxbury, Senior Researcher and Co-coordinator of the interdisciplinary thematic line Urban Cultures, Sociabilities, and Participation at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, partner of UNCHARTED, will be participating as a keynote speaker at the UCLG Summit, talking about the UNCHARTED project in the session “Measuring the impacts of cultural policies”.

The Summit is conceived as a Co-creation Exercise to envision the future, to hear voices from the all corners of the world, to show the power of local voices.

The four axis of the Summit are:
• Capacity Building
• Showcasing city experiences
• Content co-creation
• Linking culture with the UCLG Pact for the Future

The booklet with the programme of the Summit is available here for download.

For further information, please go to the website that announces the Summit at www.uclg-cul turesummit2023.org

Online, Friday 15th December 2023 h. 10.30-12 CET

EUreka3D: Implementing a Data Hub and services in the Data Space for Cultural Heritage

To create 3D models of cultural heritage collections is a new challenge for Cultural Institutions. However, the next steps after digitisation also pose challenges about storage, visualisation and preservation of such 3D models and their accompanying information. What are the available solutions that cultural professionals can consider for their collections management workflows?

In this online demo event, we presented the status of development for EUreka3D Data Hub, a piloting action aiming to create e-infrastructure services for Cultural Institutions, including:

Access to European computing and storage resources
Methods on authorisation and authentication with different levels of interaction with users
Visualisation tools for showcasing and sharing 3D models of different formats and size
Publication of the services on the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)

The demo included examples of different 3D models digitised by EUreka3D content providers, to showcase some features of the Data Hub workflow. The demo was followed online by 98 participants, with many lively questions and comments.

Recording and more info here

This event supports the TwinIt! campaign on fostering and promoting 3D digitisation to broaden access to culture, preserve irreplaceable cultural heritage and to spur innovation and creativity, fostering reuse and potential new services and applications in other sectors. The webinar also contributes to the multidisciplinary capacity-building of heritage professionals in 3D digitisation, exchange of practices and pan-European collaboration and networking.

The event took place after the EUreka3D second plenary meeting where partners in Brussels and online reviewed the progress of the project at the end of our first year of work. Additionally, a meeting of the EUreka3D Advisory Board of experts followed the demo to collect impressions, advice and recommendations that will be taken into account in the subsequent phases of development in 2024 during year two of the project.

[Show as slideshow]

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

The exhibition deals with diverse perspectives surrounding digital death, renewal and reincarnation in the virtual domain.

“For Data You Are, And To Data You Shall Return”: new arebyte online exhibition launched

arebyte and Shanghai-based Chronus Art Center (CAC) collaborate to develop, curate and produce a hybrid group exhibition: For Data You Are, And To Data You Shall Return (为数据所生，亦归数据而去), which explores global ideas surrounding life, death and healing.

For Data You Are, And To Data You Shall Return is an online exhibition of generative, video and gamified works exploring diverse perspectives surrounding digital death, renewal and reincarnation in the virtual domain. Surveying the nuance of long-standing and newer ruminations around the circularity of life and death, in technological, bodily, and spiritual contexts, the exhibition sees death as a narrative with which to discuss life. Death in the digital world is, in a particular dimension, describable, observable, and even manufacturable, as well as manageable and repairable. Life in the digital world is, on the contrary, more mysterious.

You can find the project here.

Recently published on Europeana Pro, this blogpost follows few key presentations offered at the 2023 EuropeanaTech conference,

Blogpost: IIIF for 3D, making web interoperability multi-dimensional

img. Semantic Kompakkt presentation interface featuring a 3D model and multimedia annotations. Institution:Open Science Lab, TIB – CC BY. Image sourced from Europeana Pro blog.

3D technologies offer opportunities to broaden access to culture, preserve our shared cultural heritage and spur creativity and innovation. As part of an ongoing series from the EuropeanaTech community, a new blogpost is available to all heritage researchers, professionals and technology partners that touches on core topics relevant to the digital trasnformation of cultural heritage sector: 3D and IIIF.

Dr. Lozana Rossenova Postdoc Researcher at TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, explores how interoperability for 3D is a key goal for the International Image Interoperability Framework.

Read the full blog on Europeana Pro

Online, 28 November 2023

A Cloud for All – EU cohesion funds webinar

A Cloud for All – EU cohesion funds webinar

The webinar “A Cloud for All – EU cohesion funds webinar” took place on 28 November 2023, from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM CET, with about 400 participants.

A stakeholder survey from autumn 2022 revealed that many institutions across the EU struggle with a lack of resources and competencies in the digital field, which is all the more true particularly for smaller, rural and remote institutions. Therefore, this webinar is dedicated to providing cultural heritage institutions with valuable insights and practical knowledge on how to access structural funds to ensure for example fast and reliable broadband internet, up-to-date IT equipment, and access to training for IT skills, to fully profit from the benefits of the upcoming Cultural Heritage Cloud.

The programme included examples of heritage projects realized with support of EU funds, including 3D digitization, museums’ enhancement and other digital experiences with heritage collections and accessibility.

PROGRAMME

Opening speech by Deputy Director General of DG RTD, Ms. Joanna Drake
How the Cohesion policy funds work – Presentation by Mr. Jeroen VAN OEL, DG REGIO
“Interreg DigiArc – Giving access to key knowledge of the past with the support of EU Structural funds” – Presentation by Mr. Marinos Ioannides, Cyprus University of Technology
“Musei On – Augmented Visits in the Museums of Umbria” – Presentation by Ms. Antonella Pinna
“The Digital Library of Latvia: from farmsteads to shared responsibility in a digital space” – Presentation by Ms. Karīna Bandere
Q&A
Closing & next steps

Brussels or online, December 4th and 5th 2023

YouCount Final Conference “Youth Citizen Social Science Contributing to Social Inclusion”

YouCount project

The Horizon2020 project YouCount is getting ready to celebrate its Final Conference Youth Citizen Social Science Contributing to Social Inclusion.

Join the YouCount team in Brussels on December 4th and 5th or connect, from wherever you are, to participate in this hybrid event designed for academics, citizen science practitioners, youth and stakeholder organizations, and policymakers interested in youth social inclusion.

YouCount’s researchers and young citizen scientists will present and discuss key insights and findings from the project in a dynamic format involving interactive sessions, presentations, and round-tables discussions.

You can register here

Programme

Monday 4 December: Workshop and Exhibition

The Nordic House in Brussels with host a workshop focusing on how to conduct Youth Citizen Social Science in practice and a traveling exhibition about YouCount: at each “station”, young citizen scientists will guide participants through the case country’s findings and possibly offer a small taste experience.

Those participating online will have access to a simplified visual representation of the onsite exhibition. They will be able to investigate the different “stations” through the case countries and their findings. The exhibition will also be part of the interactive session about the potential for youth citizen social science and its challenges, a topic that will be discussed in the second day of the conference.

Tuesday 5 December: Final Conference

The Final Conference will focus on presenting and discussing the main learnings from the YouCount project together with participants and key stakeholders from Europe and globally concerning our three main strands of inquiry:

To develop and validate a conceptual and methodological framework for hands-on youth citizen social science.
To use this framework to empower young people and co-create new knowledge of social inclusion and social innovations with policymakers and other stakeholders.
To increase knowledge of the actual outcomes and costs- and benefits of youth citizen social science, broadly understood.

See more details in the conference programme

Check out the speakers here

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.