Digital meets Culture

Organized by the University of Pisa and USI - Università della Svizzera Italiana, the winter school focuses on Tourism between Heritage, Knowledge and Digital Media

Winter School ‘A New Grand Tour in Tuscany’

image courtesy of Pietro Masi, Lajatico, Tuscany, Italy

A brand new Winter School program, organized by the University Of Pisa (Department of Civilization and Forms of Knowledge and Degree Course in Tourism Science) and the UNESCO Chair in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in word heritage sites of the USI – Università della Svizzera Italiana (Lugano, CH), started on 13th February 2023, until Saturday 18th, targeting students, scholars and professionals.

The Winter School is organized by Professor Alessandro Tosi of University of Pisa, Scientific Director of the Museo della Grafica of Palazzo Lanfranchi and honorary member of Photoconsortium, the international association for the promotion of photographic heritage.

In a rich program of different activities, participants had the opportunity to follow lectures held by scholars and experts in a broad interdisciplinary perspective, to engage with local stakeholders to learn about practices and issues in the management of tourist flows and the organization of major events regarding art and cultural heritage, while being able to experience firsthand (both on an intellectual and sensorial level) a new Grand Tour in some of the most bewitching enviroments in Tuscany.

Digital media provide the necessary tools to deepen, represent and communicate the relationship between tangible and intangible heritage and history of the inhabitants of the territory, in a consistent and exciting narrative. Among the talks, on Wednesday 15th, an interesting lecture by dr. Antonella Fresa discussed about the use of digital communication and digital heritage collections in tourism promotion, with a presentation entitled “Digital communication, digital contents and participatory approaches for cultural and touristic promotion of small towns: the experience of Photoconsortium and Europeana”. – Download presentation (PDF, 5 Mb)

Winter School
A New Grand Tour in Tuscany
Tourism between Heritage, Knowledge and Digital Media

UniPi, Università di Pisa – USI, Università della Svizzera italiana
Academic partner: Fondazione Campus

Organizers: Alessandro Tosi, Lorenzo Cantoni, Silvia De Ascaniis
Instructors: Alessandro Tosi, Lorenzo Cantoni, Silvia De Ascaniis, Enrica Lemmi, Veronica Neri, Adriano Fabris, Antonella Fresa
Tutors: Silvia Dadà, Erika Temperino, Emanuele Fulvio Perri, Eleonora Alberti
Administration: Maria Leandra Lupi
Summer/Winter Schools office: Erica Ribechini
Staff: Maria Cioni
Comunication: Simona Bellandi, Fabiana Fiorelli
With the support of:
Comune di Pisa, Museo della Grafica, Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università di Pisa, Orto Botanico, Sistema Museale di Ateneo dell’Università di Pisa, Opera della Primaziale Pisana, Camera di Commercio Toscana Nord-Ovest, Terre di Pisa, Fondazione Carnevale di Viareggio, Comune di Lajatico, Pro Loco Lajatico, Photoconsortium, Promoter, Royal Victoria Hotel

The path was opened involving the local community and connecting the village with local business and the monument

Participatory opening of a new cultural route in Kallithea village, INCULTUM Pilot in Greece

All images and text courtesy of The High Mountains.

In the context of INCULTUM Pilot 7 Aoos the shared river, the High Mountains Social Cooperative organised a participatory action for opening a new cultural route in Kallithea village, which took place during the 10th and 14th October 2022.

During a first event organized in Konitsa entitled “Culture, Tourism and Social Innovation: The Collective Organization of the Cultural Experience of our Homeland” (21 May 2022) The High Mountains team presented the results of the research conducted to local stakeholders on the strengths and prospects, but also on the problems and weaknesses of the development of cultural tourism in Konitsa’s municipality in combination with the data collected by the desk research that THM team conducted about the area. All the data were analyzed, visualized, and combined in order to plan evidence-based actions to support cultural tourism in their area. Using innovative business intelligence tools, the outcomes of these two parallel researches were presented as feedback to local stakeholders. This innovative participatory process was an attempt to raise the collective intelligence of the stakeholders in order to plan evidence-based actions to support cultural tourism in their area.

[Show as slideshow]

Based on the visualized evidence, local stakeholders decided the initiatives they were willing to take in order to support the development of cultural tourism in their area. In this direction the cultural association of Kallithea proposed to take action on the opening of a cultural route in their village that was connecting the village with the monument of st Constantine chapel in the forest. The path was opened involving the local community and connecting the village with local business and the monument.

Although, the innovation characterized this action was the use of visitors to help in the opening of the path. THM used platforms like wwoof and workaway to attract visitors of the area that wanted to volunteer and get in touch with locals and local culture. The municipality agreed to equip the abandoned community guesthouse in order to host the volunteers team that was formed. Local people and the cultural association offered their help not only in the opening of the path, but also cooking for the volunteers team.

As a result, a new cultural route that passes through the village, connecting 3 local business with a monument of the area was established in a participatory way and it is posted on wikiloc available for the visitors of the area.

The conference is organized by the UNESCO Reserve of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines to consult extensively various stakeholders on the territory

INCULTUM presented at Man and Biosphere conference in Garfagnana

On 15th February 2023 in Castelnuovo di Garfagnaga there was a the first event of a cycle of consultative meetings with local stakeholders in the area touched by the ample Man and Biosphere MAB UNESCO Reserve in the Apennines park.

The half day event engaged citizens, local administrations, the Universities and schools, tourist and industrial operators and the third sector representatives to discuss new programmes to reaffirm an alliance of the man and nature in the Apennines.

Among the talks, the INCULTUM Pilot set in Garfagnana and the project’s overall innovation strategies were extesively presented by prof. Enrica Lemmi of University of Pisa.

About the event, Italian language:

Programme, Italian language (PDF, 700 Kb)

[Show as slideshow]

The Pilot set in the Altiplano de Granada continues establishing collaboration of the town councils and the irrigation communities of the municipalities

INCULTUM Pilot: meeting in Castril with the Town Hall and the Irrigators’ Community

text and images courtesy of Elena Correa Jiménez (University of Granada).

INCULTUM Pilot in Granada is coordinated by the Biocultural Archaeology Laboratory (MEMOLab), led by Professor Dr. José María Martín Civantos, from the Department of Medieval History and CCTTHH of the University of Granada. It includes fieldwork of digitisation of irrigation ditch networks and location of elements intended to the creation of cultural trails.

One of the towns in the area of the Pilot is Castril, located in the northeast of the province of Granada, where the mapping work of irrigation ditches is taking place with collaboration of the municipality and by participatory activities which involve citizens, volunteers and students.

The Pilot is also continuing negotiations between the irrigation community and the Town Hall, with the aim of finalizing the administrative agreement for payment for the services.

On 3 February there was a meeting with the Castril Town Council and the Community of Irrigators of the municipality. The experts of MEMOLab continue to gather information about the cultural trail that will run along the main irrigation channel of the Vega de Tubos to the town centre.

Learn more about INCULTUM Pilot 1 – Altiplano de Granada

A new action for creating a Greenway in the Trapani territory is extending the impact of INCULTUM pilot in Sicily

Recovering train routes and linking trails in the Sicilian Inland

The INCULTUM Pilot set in Sicily is coordinated by the GAL Elimos, and is focused on establishing collaborations with local municipalities in the Trapani province, specifically Calatafimi-Segesta, Custonaci and Buseto Palizzolo. One of the scopes is to develop territorial promotion and especially to enhance the islamic heritage in the territory of Mounts of Trapani. Now the GAL Elimos is extending activities also in neighbour areas, and specifically supporting a project of recovering historical train routes among villages such as the trails “Kaggera-Vita-Salemi”, “Salemi-Santa Ninfa” and “Castelvetrano-San Carlo Burgio”.

These routes have a huge potential in linking the smaller train infrastructures of the area to other existing routes such as cycle lanes, foot lanes and horse lanes, which all pass across the territory and link architectural and historical heritage sites.

This “Greenway” project also intends to create synergies and cooperation with various stakeholders operating in the area such as hostels, B&B, slow food tasting and restaurants, and all the other tourism activities in the territory.

The effort on establing the new “Greenway” complements the work already done in INCULTUM and is sustained with local projects that support investments on infrastructures.

Learn more about INCULTUM Pilot in Sicily

All photographs in this post courtesy of Promoter s.r.l

The International Festival of Volterra’s Roman Theatre is selected among 260 projects

Volterra in Art Bonus Contest

The Art Bonus Contest, organized by Ministry of Culture, has selected the International Festival of Volterra’s Roman Theatre among the 260 projects in Italy that in the last year have successfully closed their fundraising Art Bonus, the tax measure introduced to encourage donations in favour of culture.

The selected projects have been included in the portal page dedicated to the competition to be voted so as to access the final phase.

Vote for the International Festival of Volterra’s Roman Theatre project!

Volterra in concorso Art Bonus

Il Festival Internazionale del Teatro Romano di Volterra selezionato tra 260 progetti

Il concorso ART BONUS, organizzato dal Ministero della Cultura, ha selezionato il Progetto Festival Internazionale del Teatro Romano di Volterra tra i 260 progetti d’Italia che nell’ultimo anno hanno chiuso con successo una loro raccolta fondi Art Bonus, la misura fiscale introdotta per incentivare le donazioni a favore della cultura.

I progetti selezionati sono stati inseriti nella pagina del portale dedicato al concorso per essere votati così da accedere alla fase finale.

Votate il progetto Festival Internazionale del Teatro Romano!

e-IRG sees a clear need to enhance the coordination and cooperation among major European e-Infrastructure initiatives, which are an indispensable part of EOSC.

e-IRG White Paper 2022

The e-IRG White Paper 2022 addresses the coordination and cooperation among European e-Infrastructures and takes further the series of e-IRG policy documents. Since the introduction of the e-Infrastructure Commons in the e-IRG Roadmap 2012, some progress has been made towards an integrated e-Infrastructure landscape, most notably with the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the federation of generic (horizontal) and thematic (vertical) services from e-Infrastructures and Research Infrastructures accordingly.

Still, progress is slow given the complex European research ecosystem spanning institutional, national regional and European components, at different maturity levels and speeds. The current cooperation and coordination among European e-Infrastructure initiatives and related organisations under the EOSC undertaking or other efforts, is ad-hoc and not properly framed. e-IRG sees a clear need to enhance the coordination and cooperation among major European e-Infrastructure initiatives, which are an indispensable part of EOSC.

The objective of this e-IRG White Paper 2022 is to provide recommendations to the different stakeholders to strengthen the communication between e-Infrastructure providers at European level and their cooperation towards an enhanced and coordinated strategy setting.

The e-IRG White Paper 2022 has been published and is available on Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/record/7584778#.Y9joOi9XYdU

online, 28 February 2023

A Cultural Deal for Europe – Policy Conversation

Culture Action Europe (CAE), European Cultural Foundation, and Europa Nostra invite you to join the Cultural Deal for Europe annual policy conversation: Culture is the new energy for Europe on 28 February from 15.00-18.00 CET.

The European Parliament elections 2024 are approaching, preceded in 2023 by the mid-term review of the Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), which might add extra resources to the EU’s budget for the second half of the financial cycle to tackle the era of multicrisis.

Culture needs to be at the core of both debates, and strategically associated with the collective effort ahead of the major democratic exercise in Europe. We believe culture is a fundamental value for democracy and that it is our duty to imagine the future place and role of culture and cultural heritage in Europe.

The Cultural Deal for Europe campaign – by Culture Action Europe, European Cultural Foundation and Europa Nostra – presents eight proposals to put culture centre stage in EU’s policies.

On 28 February, it is organized and online conversation with the members of the European Parliament representing various political groups.

It is possible to register for the online webinar via the link below. The deadline to register is 27 February at 12pm CET.

Register here!

From the acculturation of people on everyday actions, to fostering digital sobriety in the use of technologies, EUreka3D takes into account climate-related issues

Mindful of climate impact: EUreka3D looks into awareness

images in this blog come from the Europeana webinar “How to create more climate-friendly communications”.

The EUreka3D project, co-funded by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union, is supporting the process of enabling the digital transformation of the Cultural Heritage (CH) sector, by building capacity and offering services to institutions especially regarding 3D digitization, storage and access.

In the strand of work for impact assessment, it is important to look at the impact that the digital transformation has on climate, particularly referring to online data storage and sharing. For this reason and in the light of initiating a path of awareness raising that accompanies the project’s activities, EUreka3D follows the initiatives of the Europeana Network Climate Action community, such as the recent workshop “How to create more climate-friendly communications” that reflected on how in the everyday work of any cultural professionals small actions can be taken to make a difference in terms of climate impact.

Larger reflections and mindfulness of climate impact delivered by storage and data management & sharing are also an element of EUreka3D technical requirements for the services developed in the project, as part of the activities of the technical partners in the project EGI and ACK Cyfronet AGH, who are collaborate with Cyprus University of Technology and Europeana Foundation.

First task is in facts setting the stage of the upcoming technologies, tools and services that EUreka3D will make available for supporting bigger and smaller CHIs with 3D and other types of cultural collections.

Grand prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts

STARTS Prize 2023 Open Call

S+T+ARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances of technology and artistic practice. As part of this initiative, the S+T+ARTS Prize awards the most pioneering collaborations and results in the field of creativity and innovation at the crossings of science and technology with the arts. The S+T+ARTS Prize of the European Commission is launched by Ars Electronica and the consortium partners Bozar, Waag, INOVA+, T6 Ecosystems, French Tech Grande Provence and Frankfurter Buchmesse.

Since 2016, more than 200 projects out of 14.291 submissions from 96 different countries have been honored and a total of 280,000€ in prize money has been distributed in the S+T+ARTS Prize competition.

Science, Technology and Arts (= S+T+ARTS) form a nexus with an extraordinarily high potential for creative innovation. And such innovation is considered to be precisely what’s called for if we’re to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. The role of artists thus is no longer seen to be just about propagating scientific and technological knowledge and skills among the general public but much more as a kind of catalyst that can inspire and trigger innovative processes. The artistic practice of creative exploration and experimental appropriation of new technologies has a wide-reaching potential to contribute to the development of new products and new economic, social and business models. Accordingly, the S+T+ARTS Prize focuses on artistic works that influence or change the way we look at technology, and on innovative forms of collaboration between the ICT sector and the world of art and culture.

Two prizes will be awarded, each endowed with €20,000 euros. The “Grand Prize – Innovative Collaboration” will be awarded to projects that combine industry or technology and the arts, with the goal of opening new paths for innovation. The “Grand Prize – Artistic Exploration” will honor artistic research and works that have the potential to influence or change the way technology is used, applied or perceived. In addition, twenty eight more projects will receive a Nomination or an Honorary Mention. The winning projects, which will be announced in June, will be then featured at Ars Electronica Festival in September 2023 and other events of the consortium partners BOZAR, Waag Futurelab, INOVA+, T6 Ecosystems, French Tech Grande Provence and Frankfurt Bookfair.

Please see here the full rules and regulations for the application: https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/open-call/

Key-dates: