Digital meets Culture

Petrozavodsk, 19 - 22 June 2012

Cultural Heritage and Information Technologies. Museum as an information system

The annual conference ADIT that has been held since 1997 is one of the key All-Russian activities on promotion of information technologies among museums and other cultural institutions that facilitates the development of museums and exchange of regional experience.

Conferences ADIT have been held in different regions of the country since 1998. The Republic of Karelia has been chosen as the Conference ADIT- 2012 venue, the Conference Coordination Center is the Kizhi State Open Air Museum.

It is a modern and developing museum that extensively uses information technologies in its work and does a great job of promoting historical and cultural heritage of Karelia and the Russian North as a whole both in Russia and abroad. A large number of foreign experts are expected to participate in the conference 2012, and it will be also the occasion to present European best-practice projects like Linked Heritage, Europeana and others.

Conference Objectives:
– Experience exchange in the sphere of informatization of museums, discussion of issues concerning preservation and interpretation of cultural heritage through the use of digital technologies.
– Promotion of mobility among workers in the cultural sector, exchange of experience between Russian and foreign specialists in the field of new information technologies in culture, arts and education
– Development of modern interactive museum activities for attracting young audiences to historical and cultural heritage.

The conference is structured with sections, seminars and “the Museum computer festival”.

Conference languages are Russian, English
Note: English translation will be carried out at the plenary session and of the sections “IT technologies for cultural tourism” and “Global tendencies. Foreign practices in the use of IT for preservation, study and presentation of cultural heritage” (translation of other sections of the conference will be carried out as and when necessary and possible).

Registration for the conference and reports:
Registration starts on February 6, 2012. Please register at the ADIT web site.
Registration deadline is April 30, 2012.

Conference Coordinators:

The Kizhi State Open Air Museum

Kassianow Sergey, kassianow@kizhi.karelia.ru,

Babushkina Galina, babushkina@kizhi.karelia.ru,

tel/fax +7 (8142) 76-70-91

Non-commercial partnership “ADIT”

Tolstaya Natalia, President, n_tolstaya@mail.ru

ADIT website: http://www.adit.ru/eng/default.asp#

Florence 9th-10th February 2012

Europeana Photography KICK-OFF MEETING

by Valentina Bachi

Update for the Reader: Starting from the 1st of December 2012 the coordination of the EuropeanaPhotography project is transferred to the University of Leuven. Alinari 24 Ore withdrew from the project. The photographic images of Alinari Archives remain nevertheless part of the project content.

A freezing cold Firenze welcomed with northern winds and a couple of snowflakes the beginning of EuropeanaPhotography project.

19 partners represented each by one or two persons, from 11 EU countries plus the Commission Project Officer Mr. Krister Olson from Sweden met at Alinari’s picturesque library to sum up and plan the EuropeanaPhotography project during a very friendly and motivated kick-off meeting.

The welcome speech of Mr. Claudio de Polo

The welcome speech of Mr. Antonio Scuderi

After the welcome speeches of Mr. Claudio de Polo, president of Fratelli Alinari s.p.a. and Mr. Antonio Scuderi, CEO of Gruppo 24 Ore, the meeting was hosted and guided by Andrea de Polo the Project Manager with the assistance of Antonella Fresa of Promoter in her role of Technical Coordinator of the European project.

Mr. Krister Olson, Commission Project Officer

Mr. Krister Olson, the project officer of European Commission, congratulated with all the partners for the success of project proposal at European Commission, and followed the whole meeting and the participants’ interventions with great attention and spirit of cooperation.

Beside a general overview of the project, targets, objectives, work-plan and reporting, the work-packages leaders informed about next coming activities:

Among others, Frederik Truyen of Leuven Catholic University talked about content and themes of the project, to be further investigated in the next meeting; Roxanne Wyns of KMKG (the federal museums of Belgium) well explained the hot matter of multilingual cultural repositories, with special focus on harmonization and indexing, Nikolaos Simou of National Technical University of Athens illustrated the innovative aggregation and mapping tool named MINT, within a very “user-friendly” presentation of complex technical matters; finally, Andrea de Polo of Alinari 24 Ore, the Project Manager of EuropeanaPhotography, talked about IPR and future sustainability of the project.

The other partners of the project came from the whole Europe: TopPhoto from UK, Imagno from Austria, Parisienne de Photographie from France, PolFoto and Workers’ Museums from Denmark, Ayuntamiento De Girona and the Generalitat of Catalonia from Spain, United-Archives from Germany, National Academic Library Information System NALIS from Bulgaria, Museums of Photographic History and The International Centre for Information Management System and Services ICIMSS from Poland, the Theater Institute of Bratislava from Slovakia, Lithuanian Art Museum from Lithuania, ICCU from Italy. They participated the meeting with deep attention and proper questions and interventions, and shared the atmosphere of mutual cooperation – especially towards those partners who came for the first time into a EU project and felt at the beginning a little bit shy.

During the 2-days meeting, Alinari 24 Ore invited the partners to a very interesting and exclusive tour of its palace with an overview of their advanced digitizing systems (80 MegaPixel technology from Leaf / Phase One) and the top moments of visiting the Archive of ancient photographs and the incredible glass-plates negative collection, plus the visit to the ArtPrintworks explaining the original, artisanal printing process.

Last but not least, on day 2 after the conclusion of the meeting, those partners who were not forced to go in order to catch a train or a plain, had time to enjoy a tour of Alinari National Museum of Photography MNAF which was as well an amazing, cultural and artistic experience.

Impossible to imagine a nicer kick-off meeting, and so full of promise: next date for the EuropeanaPhotography partners is 11^th-12^th April in Leuven to deeply discuss about content and themes of the ancient photography to be brought to Europeana.

Related links:

EuropeanaPhotography website: http://www.europeana-photography.eu/

Lithuanian Art Museum website, kick-off meeting article (Lithuanian): http://www.emuziejai.lt/tarptautinis/2012_02_EuropeanaPhotography.html

[Show as slideshow]

Chasen Sino-Sin's complete 3D digitisation services of cultural heritage relics and museums.

High resolution 3D digital imaging in China

3D digitisation of cultural relics opened up new applications and uses that were not possible or cost effective in the past. First, 3D rendering facilitates the continuous evaluation and analysis of the relics without touching the physical object itself, thus improving the safety of the already fragile relics. Secondly, the 3D renderings are very suitable to be included into interactive product presentations, manuals, journals, technical literature and sales brochures. Thirdly, it could improve and facilitate the dialogue between museums and other cultural sectors.

Moreover, archiving the complete digital data of cultural objects, either as point clouds or model surfaces, forms the basis of preserving cultural heritage artifacts. Thanks to the completeness and accuracy of the scan data, the scanned objects are in fact a faithful representation of the real cultural objects.

Sino-sin is a company based in Beijing (China) which is a leader in the field of 3D high resolution digital imaging of cultural heritage relics and museums. Sino-sin is today recognised as a key plater in the digital preservation of cultural heritage object in China. It is also the only R&D centre appointed by the Museum Association of China for “Digitisation Technologies, Techniques and Standards for Cultural Relics”.

Making use of the latest technology in scanning hardware and data processing software, Sino-sin engineered a system which provides a complete range of 3D digitisation services for cultural heritage relics and museums, among which 3D data processing, texturing & rendering and 3D scanning solutions to overcome critical scanning issues in complex geometry, reflective and dark surfaces. From the scan data it is also possible to build aesthetic surface models of the relics, to enhance some details or to modify and spatially manipulate them, thus enabling a great number of viewing and presentation possibilities. These models can be then restored to the original state of the physical relic.
Moreover, Sino-sin also delevoped several other specific modules, according to the needs and requirements of the museums, to facilitate the management of their 3D data, such as a 3D data simplification platform, a 3D model viewing and a measurement platform. Up to now, Sino-sin has successfully digitised more than 200 pieces of relics for the Inner Mongolia Museum, designed and produced multi media creations for Tianjin Museum and performed digitisation for Xi’an Museum.

Sino-sin’s 3D model development service is composed of 2 main parts.

Acquisition of data through a range of 3D scanners. This process is repeated until the whole visible surface of the object is captured from many different angles. These highly dense datasets form the basis of most of the 3D models.
High resolution photography. High resolution photographs of each relic are taken again from many different angles for the mapping of the texture.

The scan data can be used in many different application contexts. Examples are:

Exibitions and interactive presentations. The 3D format enormously increases the range of presentation possibilities for the museums and enhances the storage of cultural heritage data, thus improving access for the consumers.
Relic packaging. After a 3 dimensional scan of the relic has been produced through the latest laser and structured light technologies, the accurate profile of the relic will be used to design a perfect fitting mould. This mould will be then CNC cut by the milling machines on specially selected materials and the suitable external packaging for the relics will be built according to given requirements.
Relic research & restoration. 3D digitizing captures the geometry of the relic and converts it into a digital format. This digital format can be converted to a polygon which can be selected, measured and spatially manipulated for close up analysis and research purposes. Moreover, the 3D scan data can be also used to reconstruct missing pieces of artifacts and for 3D dimensional and geometrical analysis.

As digital technology evolves, 3D data is increasingly preferred as a method of preserving cultural heritage artifacts. It provides an easy way to get in touch with them and significantly reduces the need for physical storage space, offering to museums and related organizations a portable and accessible platform to exchange information and to researchers the possibility to easily browse and review the materials.

3D scanning solutions will be next generation in archiving, preserving and restoring art and cultural hetitage artifacts for China and the rest of the world.

[Show as slideshow]

A modern artist shares his experience.

DIGITAL CREATING

Situ Xiaochun, art consultant of digitalmeetsculture and member of NIO art studio is exceptionally telling about himself and his concept of art in an interesting paper about digital creation. It is an artist’s point of view regarding the impact of digital technologies on creative process and inspiration. Xiaochun performs with the digital tools as a mean and as a source for his artistic path, and in this paper we hear his voice about exploring both ways for digital creating, provided with many images of his artworks and explanation of their artistic process and intentions.

ABSTRACT:

Computers, digital cameras, digital video, digital recording, digital composing, etc., with the advent of the digital age, digital technology exists in the art everywhere. It’s impossible to ignore that digital technology brings a new experience to art creating, someone has a question: is a writer that writes articles by computer a digital age art? My answer is “no”, but it may contain very few elements of the digital age, I would say digital technology had an impact on art. Compared to writing with pen and paper, computer writing is more neat and cool, but lost contact with pen and paper that bring people’s emotions and enthusiasm. What you wrote from handwriting font became cold print font, how do you feel. These are changes. I have to say, this the characteristics of digital. I am not good writer, so come back to my subject. Since the 90s until the present, from classical sculpture to digital media creation, I have some experience to share.

(…)

Download the full paper (PDF, 2,57 Mb)

Enjoy the video of traditional Chinese dance “Peacock” that inspired XiaoChun’s sculpture “Wind Dance”.

In Israel the Museums system is innovating towards digital preservation and sharing

ISRAEL MUSEUMS GOING DIGITAL

More than 35 Museums in Israel merged into a project for enhancing Israel Cultural Heritage through digital technologies on the model of some European best practice as Europeana and Linked Heritage. At the moment phase 1 (building a management system for digital heritage: MANA) is completed and phase 2 (developing the public interface: iMus) was recently presented.

MANA is an intranet based cataloging & digitizing data warehouse unified platform for Israeli Museums, and it is actually only the 1^st phase of the whole project.

It is the central system for collections cataloging and management, serving more than 35 Museums in Israel as their major internal management tool.

MANA was designed for answering different demands regarding Israeli Museums System:

To supply a digital preservation tool
To supply a unified platform & process
To enable better artifacts accessibility

Thanks to MANA it is possible to manage different entities and properties: Artifacts e.g name, images/videos, description, artist/creator, dates, location; Collections / Exhibitions e.g. name, location, duration, artifacts; Museums e.g. name, about, location, contacts, pictures.

The 2^nd phase of the Israeli Museums collection management project is to build a user-friendly interface for the access to the resources of MANA.

Actually, it was recently presented iMus, the public frontend (web portal) of MANA. The main target of iMus is to expose the cultural treasures of Israel to the public (Researchers / Students, Tourists, New immigrants to Israel, impaired people who are accessibility challenged) with accessibility, standardization, and simplicity of use.

Furthermore, iMus supplies a web portal for museums, exhibitions, collections & artifacts. iMus is also linked to Europeana and Judaica Europeana to share and connect Israel-related contents.

The global project, run by Ram Shimony, is intended to manage a group of experts towards forming the Israeli Museums Portal, in line with Europeana and Linked Heritage projects.

Slide presentation (PDF, 1,12 MB)

Italian, Spanish and Russian photography meeting in Russia.

Photo Vernissage 2011, Saint Petersburg : «Melody and Passion of Mediterranean Italy, Spain»

For the first time in St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia, Italy and Spain presented some of their most important artists of contemporary photography – more than 80 authors for a total of over 1.000 works. The event have been supported by the Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg, the Consulate General of the Italian Republic, the Consulate General of Spain, the Russian Union of Art Photographers and took place in the stately neoclassic scenery of the Manage, the city’s main exhibition center. The exhibition took place from 9 to 30 September 2011 and included the presence of fine art photographers like Franco Donaggio, John Pepper and Rudy Pessina.

The event included two vast exhibition sections.

The Retrospective Section, based on rare and unique photographs from Russian and foreign archives, revealed famous and unknown, current and forgotten pages in history of Italy and Spain as well as the stories of relationships between our countries.

The Modern Photography section included works of very various genres and techniques, with different use of digital tools.

By taking photographs in the streets of modern cities, Alessandro Cirillo is far from life scenes documentation. He creates some sort of image-visions that remind scenic paintings by Edward Hopper. The main character of Cirillo’s works is the light flickering in the mysterious darkness of the city streets in the middle of the night dissolving viscous density of colors.
Gabriele Croppi also tends to philosophy of Edward Hopper and Giorgio de Chirico in his oeuvre. Streets and squares shot by the author carry portrait characteristics and soak up timeless eternity, which fills those urban landscapes with some metaphysical sense.
On the contrary the urban photographs by Franco Donaggio were created in a single burst of expressive feeling. A modern city for the master is in metal constructions, dynamics of sharp lines and forms and vivid contrasts of color which reminds of paintings by Mario Cirone. The photography of Rudy Pessina, evocative and essential, use the black and white to investigate the matter and forms, enhance the play of light that draws the reality, to grasp the intangible mystery of human presence in relation to things and environments. We learn Sicily, the beauty of its landscapes, the flavor of local cities, temperament and behavior of its citizens through the works of Gabriele Lentini and Jonh Pepper.
Photos by Francesco Comello and Monica Bulaj dedicated to the life of Russian village are imbued with the mysticism. The Sakhalyn Island, the cities of the Russian North are represented in the works of Francesco Cito and Giuliana & Simone.

The contemporary Spanish photography is represented by mature and young artists from Barcelona and Madrid.
Life in Catalonia in 1960s – 1970s with its struggle for independence, political protests, demonstrations, feminist movements come to us from the works by Manel Armengol.
Small fishing village Baixamar as if “floats” out of Nuria Grass’ childhood memories. The same mysterious, severe, full of inner dramatic sense Spain rises to our view from the photos by Israel Arino. In stark contrast are endless fests with their passions, fireworks of emotions, dances and bullfights captured in works by Jordi Cohen, Jordi Bernado, Cesar Ordonez.
Artistic experiments are demonstrated by young photographers Lucia Herero, Hassel Y Grettel, Fausti Lucia and many others.

The competitive programme of the Photo Vernissage “Melody and passion of Mediterranean” is powered by the Russian Union of Art Photographers. This section contains works that won in two contest topics: “Italy, Spain through the eyes of Russian photographers” and “Surrealistic photography”.

Within the Photo Vernissage several open master-classes have been held by the artists:
Umberto Barone & Veronica Conte – Italy, Milan,
Alessandro Cirillo – Italy, Bari,
Gabriele Lentini – Italy, Palermo,
Pier Paolo Fassetta – Italy, Venice,
Rudy Pessina – Italy, Pisa,
Pep Escoda – Spain, Barcelona,
Cesar Ordonez – Spain, Barcelona,
Fabbio Donaggio – Italy, Milan,
Lucia Herrero – – Spain, Barcelona,
Gabriele Croppi – Italy, Milan,
Raimon Sola – Spain, Barcelona,
Marco Lillini – Italy, Rome,
Hassel Y Grettel – Spain, Barcelona
Luis Jaume – Spain, Barcelona
Jordi Cohen – Spain, Barselona
ORGANIZERS
Central Exhibition Hall “MANEGE” and EC “REAL”

EXHIBITION CURATOR

Marina Jigarkhanyan

Technical sponsor – CANON

WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Committee for Culture of Saint Petersburg,
Consulate General of the Italian Republic,
Consulate General of Spain,
Center of Spanish Language and Culture ADELANTE in Saint Petersburg,
The Russian Union of Art Photographers,
Photo agency SUD 57 (Italy),
Photo agency PHOTOLTD.IT (Italy)
Tagomago Gallery (Spain)

Dissemination key role.

Linked Heritage: main goals on the dissemination

Events organized within the European projects are always a good occasion for partners’ exchange, but in particular represent a moment of high visibility for the project.

Linked Heritage has planned the organization of several events until the end of the project.

These events represent good examples of the types of third-party occasions where the project will seek to make a presentation and to gain access to important target audiences. It may be noted that consortium members are frequently involved in the organisation and/or funding of these events, and so access for the project can be assured in some cases, and is likely in others.

In summary:

– Linked Heritage will specifically target Europeana, EuropeanaLabs, the Council of Content Providers and Aggregators, through established links, co-membership of the Content Council and the Linked Heritage consortium and presentations and promotions at events where Europeana will be present and active.

– Linked Heritage will address sister projects and other content providers through concertation, seminars, publications, guidelines and handbooks, etc. The issues addressed by Linked Heritage are of real interest to this audience, because of their importance in the future development of online cultural content.

– Policy groups and government agencies continue to have enormous influence through their ownership or funding of many memory institutions, and their coordinating role at national and regional levels. Several such bodies are members of the Linked Heritage consortium, and will target their peers.

– The private sector will be targeted using Linked Heritage partners as “reference sites” which demonstrate the new services and opportunities and the added value which engagement with Europeana, with Linked Heritage and with the public sector can bring.

– Linked Heritage will specifically target those elements of the cultural sector which are “non-heritage” (not libraries, museums or archives), such as arts centres, cultural tourism locations, etc.

In summary, the following activities will be carried out:

– Website creation and maintenance: it will be essential and it will clearly outline the rationale for the project, the aims of the project and the approach which the project is taking.

– Seminars and presentations will enable the project dissemination working group to gain access to the professional audiences they require.

– 3 international conferences: one under the Hungarian Presidency of the EU hosted by the National Sechzeny Library, one under the Irish Presidency of the EU organised by the Library Council and the closing conference in Rome that will deliver an opportunity to present and discuss the project’s results, the opportunities for further development and the path of integration into Europeana.

– Academic publications and conferences, in order to raise awareness of its work, to attract users for validation and feedback, and to raise the profile of the project as a whole.

– Meetings with Europeana and EuropeanaLabs : even though the Europeana Foundation is not a member of the Linked Heritage consortium, working together will be important and valuable for both projects.

– Encounters with the private sector: briefings will be delivered to the private sector, on events where significant numbers of appropriate stakeholders will be present.

The publications that are foreseen in the workplan will be presented in all the public events where the partners of the Linked Heritage project participate.

The publications will be available online for download on the project website.

The printed copies of the publications will be used in particular for face-to-face meetings, during the face-to-face training and provided to the participants of the closing conference in Rome.

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