Digital meets Culture

online, 8 March 2024 h. 17 CET

Webinar: Dreaming of AI: Perspectives on AI Use in Cultural Heritage

BPOC – BALBOA PARK ONLINE COLLABORATIVE is facilitating another open discussion on the use of AI in cultural heritage. In this session, we have invited Kerry Kennedy, Public Art Coordinator with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and Dr. Eve Zucker, Sociocultural Anthropologist, to open up our conversation.

Kerry and Eve will talk about their work, AI’s role and impact, and ethical considerations in the first part of the webinar. In the second part, audience members will be invited to ask questions or share their thoughts or own experiences with AI. Please come ready with questions, thoughts, opinions, and ideas. We are also conducting a survey to give an opportunity to share their thoughts asynchronously. Survey findings will be published later this year at the conclusion of the AI discussions.

online, 13 February 2024, from 14:00 to 16:30.

Webinar: Metadata in museum collections

The webinar aims to provide practical knowledge and inspiration for embracing digital innovation in the museum sector and is part of the SHIFT project (Metamorphosis of Cultural Heritage Into Augmented Hypermedia Assets for Enhanced Accessibility and Inclusion) that is being funded by the European Union Horizon Europe program.

Join us for a comprehensive webinar that delves into crucial aspects of digital transformation in museums, focusing on data management, metadata strategies, and innovative practices for the digital era. This webinar is designed for museum professionals, curators, and anyone interested in the intersection of culture, technology, and information management.

The webinar will be held online on February 13, 2024, from 14:00 to 16:30.

If you are interested in participating, please register for the event by midnight on February 12.

The application form can be found here: https://forms.gle/dZpNNXaug66fGu9p8

The lecturer at the webinar will be Fedja Kulenovic, an information and communication expert researching and practicing in the fields of data science, information sciences, knowledge management, and communications. He collaborates as a consultant with many governmental bodies, non-governmental organizations, and the business sector. Fedja strives to transfer his knowledge and experience to students of library and information sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo.

Sofia (bulgaria), 25-27 April 2024

(Be)longing: Confronting our memories – EuroClio’s annual conference 2024

The annual conference of EuroClio, the International Association of History Teachers, connects history and citizen educators from all over Europe.

Theme 2024

What are the factors that make you feel like you belong somewhere or not? Whether it is a place, a time, a family, a country, a community, or group of friends. This seemingly innocent question is key because it lies at the heart of some of the main societal questions of today. The reason is that the answers create in and out groups that divide and unite societies. People who belong seem to be entitled to more rights than those who don’t belong, perhaps most clearly expressed by politicians who state that their own people should come first. They do so to appeal to the majority, but at the expense of minorities (who come second at best).

At the same time, it is also important for anyone to feel that you belong somewhere, that you are part of something bigger. We, people, are social animals, after all.

Key questions

What can we do to create a space where everyone feels welcome? Whether they are students in a classroom, teachers at a conference, or newcomers in a society?
Should history education purposely be used for identity building? To promote a sense of belonging? Or is this instrumentalising history education?
What influences what we remember, and what we forget?
What are the implications for history education, and the use of testimonies.

What’s on the programme?

There will be a mix of activities offered. Participants can choose to participate in parallel workshops, focus group discussions, and optional social and cultural activities (such as an intercultural night, pub-quiz and museum visits). In additional there will be plenary workshops, a keynote lecture, a panel discussion, school visits, and a celebrative dinner, which all conference participants can join.

The General Assembly of EuroClio (which is open to the public, and also possible to follow online) will take place on Saturday afternoon.

Deadline for application: 11 March 2024. The official award ceremony will take place during the Ars Electronica Festival (September 4-8, 2024)

European Union Prize for Citizen Science 2024: Open for Submissions

Citizen Science makes a significant contribution to a vibrant civil society – and this is fortunately also being perceived by an increasingly broad public. The European Commission wants to further promote this development and underline the importance of Citizen Science, not least for the sustainability of our society. The new “European Union Prize for Citizen Science”, which was awarded for the first time in 2023, is an expression of this concern. The annual prize recognizes outstanding initiatives that put research, innovation, commitment and creativity at the service of our society, empowering us as individuals and strengthening us as a community, and whose social and political impact advances the further development of a pluralistic, inclusive and sustainable society in Europe.

Prize money totaling 100,000 euros will be awarded. The winners can look forward to the “European Union Prize for Citizen Science – Grand Prize”, endowed with 60,000 euros, as well as two further awards and prize money of 20,000 euros each: The “Diversity & Collaboration Award” honors projects that promote diversified participation and social inclusion and advocate for cultural diversity, while the “Digital Communities Award” recognizes initiatives that use digital technologies to educate and strengthen communities while also driving digital transformation in the field of Citizen Science.

Deadline for submissions: 11 March 2024

Read more and apply: https://ars.electronica.art/citizenscience/en/

The winners will be announced in June 2024. The official award ceremony will take place during the Ars Electronica Festival (September 4-8, 2024), where the most innovative Citizen Science projects of 2024 will be presented in exhibitions. The European Commission has entrusted Ars Electronica in Linz with the task of staging this prestigious and highly remunerated competition. The Citizen Science Award is embedded in the large-scale IMPETUS project.

Turin, the exhibition will run until February 29, 2024

Seven Deaths by Marina Abramović in a new video immersive experience at Università di Torino

Seven Deaths by Marina Abramović for Icona Callas – UniVerso project

Università di Torino presents “Icona Callas”, a series of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of Maria Callas‘s birth. These events are part of the UniVerso project, a cultural initiative connecting Turin University with the city and the surrounding territory, offering culture accessible to all.

Maria Callas, an American-born Greek soprano, was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century.

The “Icona Callas” program includes an international conference with the title “Maria Callas at 100: Opera, Celebrity, Myth”, four exhibitions, a concert, a film festival, and masterclasses by prominent figures in the world of art and culture. The initiative aims to portray Maria Callas using as many languages and forms of expression as possible.

At Palazzo del Rettorato in Turin, the exhibition “Seven Deaths” is being held until February 29, 2024. It offers a video immersive experience featuring the reinterpretation by performance artist Marina Abramović of the deaths of protagonists from seven opera shows: Carmen, Tosca, Otello, Lucia di Lammermoor, Norma, Madama Butterfly, and La Traviata. These moments were previously depicted by the artist in “7 Deaths of Maria Callas”, her live action performance that premiered in 2020 at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Germany. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Marina Abramović Institute.

Discover the detailed program

Online, May 21-22 2024

Europeana Digital Storytelling Festival 2024

Digital Storytelling Festival 2024, Europeana Foundation CC BY-SA

Join the Digital Storytelling Festival 2024 online on May 21-22, 2024, from 9 AM to 2 PM.

Organized annually by the Europeana Initiative, the international event encourages cultural heritage professionals, educators, creatives, and students from Europe and beyond to boost their storytelling skills and tell stories exploring culture.

The two-day event of talks, showcases and hands-on workshops aims to inspire participants to create connections between art, culture and history and the contemporary world.

Register now!

Deadline: 01 June 2024

The international scholarly open access journal Arts accepting paper proposal on NFT art

The international scholarly open access journal Arts is now inviting submissions for the Special Issue “NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Metaverse: The Web3 Revolution that Has Transformed the Art Market”.

Are accepted original academic papers (6,000-8,000 words), based on either qualitative or quantitative research methods. Both theoretical and empirical contributions that address the contemporary digital art trends from a multidisciplinary perspective and examine their significance for the current state and future evolution of the art market will also be considered.

Please send a short abstract (250-300 words) and your CV to Dr. Elena Sidorova (elena.sidorova@sciencespo.fr) till 01 April 2024. The deadline for submitting full-length articles for peer-review is set for 01 June 2024.

Read more at this link.
Download the full Call for Papers here (PDF, 27,4 KB).

29 January, 2024

INCULTUM pilot in Al-Andalus, training on water

Training on water in Al-Andalus

Last Monday, January 29th, MEMOLab gave a training on water in Al-Andalus at the Rafael Vidal school in Fonelas, a municipality in the Altiplano of Granada.

The conference is part of the INCULTUM pilot about Desert landscapes and oasis in the Altiplano de Granada.

The event was the occasion to discuss the importance of historical irrigation systems and the possibility of their application in education and tourism.

Barcelona, 25/1/2024

The UNCHARTED Policy Seminar in Barcelona

The last event organised by UNCHARTED took place in Barcelona on 25/01/2024, under the organisation of the University of Barcelona.

It was part of the UNCHARTED Policy Seminars activity launched with the Seminar held on Budapest on 8/12/2023.

In Barcelona, the theme connected with culture-led urban regeneration was explored via a rich programme that connected the presentation of the results of the work conducted in the frame of the Axis 2 of Work Package 5 with the points of view of a group of external experts who participated in a vivid debate.

The title of the seminar in Barcelona is “UNCHARTED: the Barcelona debates on cultural evaluation in cultural policy“.

The results of the work conducted in the two Policy Seminars of Budapest and of Barcelona are part of two deliverables that will be available on the project’s website:

D4.6 Roadmap for cultural policy action produced under the coordination of CEPEL, the research unit of the CNRS and Université de Montpellier (WP4 Leader)
D6.7 Third Policy Brief produced under the coordination of Promoter Srl.

The debates carried out in the Policy Seminars of Budapest and of Barcelona will be included in the UNCHARTED Book, which is under editing and published during the 2024 as an open access publication.

Online Panel Discussion and Online Lecture Performance (7 and 15 February)

CULTUS: arebyte free online events by artist Zach Blas

img. courtesy: arebyte

CULTUS is the second instalment of the Silicon Traces trilogy, a series of moving image installations that contends with the beliefs, fantasies, and histories influential to Silicon Valley’s visions of the future. Spanning queer and speculative engagements with psychedelia, the nootropics industry, California futurism, network infrastructure, and political resistance, the trilogy surfaces the political unconscious of the tech industry.

CULTUS Online Panel Discussion
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
7:30PM – 9PM

Together with academics, artist Zach Blas and arebyte curator Rebecca Edwards unravel complex intersections of artifical intelligence, religion, feminism, ani-racism, and speculative thinking present in CULTUS.

CULTUS: Online Lecture Performance
Thursday, February 15, 2024
6:30PM – 8:00PM

Artist Zach Blas delves into the key concepts behind his new work CULTUS. Blas takes us through research into organisations like The Way of The Future Church, theories like Ray Kurzweil’s spiritual machine, and transhumanism in sci-fi and religion.

Both events are free of charge and will take place online