Digital meets Culture

online, 1-3 December 2020

Cultural Participation and Local Resilience: Strategies for the recovery

Webinar in cooperation with the European Commission and part of the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage

What is the issue?
The direct and indirect impacts of culture on local development are largely achieved through cultural participation and access of diverse groups of population to cultural amenities and activities. Cultural participation is linked to a number of areas of social and economic impact: social inclusion, education and life-long learning, well-being and health. High levels of cultural participation might be conducive to a favourable social environment for cultural and creative entrepreneurship, thereby enhancing the impact of cultural and creative production on job creation. In many cities and regions, cultural participation and specialisations in the cultural and creative sectors are evolving, and being used to tackle and societal challenges (e.g. climate change) from new angles, favouring resilience, skills creation and prosocial behavioural changes. High levels of cultural participation also create the premises for a stronger support of cultural spending and cultural policies from the public opinion, thus contributing to the financial and social sustainability of cultural and creative sectors.

The OECD-EC Policy Webinar
There is however still a lack of capacity at subnational levels to measure cultural participation and design instruments that can effectively increase it. This policy webinar will provide an opportunity to learn from latest academic evidence on the economic and social impacts of cultural participation, approaches to better capture it at regional level and instruments to increase it. The event shall also showcase a number of interesting European and non-European cases in this regard.

More information and registration: http://www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/culture-and-creative-sectors.htm

REACH Stakeholders’ meeting, Thursday 26 November 2020

Towards a permanent coordination structure for cultural heritage research

One year after the “Horizons for Heritage Research” Symposium held in Brussels in March 2019, under the aegis of the European Commission, the REACH project planned to continue the discussion about the need a permanent coordination structure of the cultural heritage research during its Conference planned in June 2020. Because of the pandemic, the Conference was cancelled and it was not possible to carry on the work.
However, the coordination structure of cultural heritage research is still a priority in the agenda of many stakeholders in Europe.
For this scope, the REACH project promoted the Stakeholders’ meeting on 26 November, to follow-up the ideas emerged in the Symposium and to plan future actions.
The meeting was held online and joined by representatives of several Horizon 2020 projects, EC Direction General Education & Culture, EC Direction General Research & Innovation, Europa Nostra, the ECHOES Cluster, Eurocities, Europeana Foundation, Photoconsortium Association, UNESCO, Wikimedia and, of course, members of the REACH Consortium.
Participants debated on the main features of the coordination as illustrated in the following slide presented at the meeting by Prof. Neil Forbes of Coventry University, Coordinator of the REACH project.

The meeting was concluded with the agreement of the participants to create two working groups about:
1) the permanent on-line space for communication and negation among actors of cultural heritage research
2) the periodic physical encounter of the members of the coordination, for example in the form of a scientific conference
Follow us online on the website of the REACH project to be updated about the next steps: www.reach-culture.eu

Download the Report of the Symposium of March 2019
Previous blog on the Symposium

online, 15 December 2020

Languages & the Media Virtual Event 2020

Languages & the Media Virtual Event 2020 is taking place on Tuesday, December 15, 2020 – and the full programme is now online.

When we had to postpone the full conference to September 2021, we decided to host an online event this year to bring a glimpse of the Languages & the Media experience home to you. With this Virtual Event, we’ll be offering our community an opportunity to come together and catch up on what has been happening in the world of content localisation and accessibility. We will be hearing from a great line-up of guest speakers about the disruptive impact of COVID-19 on the industry and how the pandemic has become a trend accelerator for cloud infrastructure and remote collaboration. TV viewing and online video consumption have boomed during global lockdowns and advancements have been made in the deployment of AI and MT in localisation processes and access services.

The keynote and industry roundtable will be followed by another special event: the Jan Ivarsson Award ceremony which is traditionally hosted at Languages & the Media and presented by ESIST.

Click here to view the programme.

Places are limited, so register now for the Languages & the Media Virtual Event. Secure your place to attend the live session and submit your questions to our speakers for the Q&A.

For group registrations please contact registrations@languages-media.com.

online, 2-4 December 2020

CoMuseum International Conference

The 10th CoMuseum International Conference is taking place on December 2 – 4, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 social distancing measures, the 2020 CoMuseum will be a virtual event.

On December 2, the CoMuseum will feature keynote presentations, fireside chats and panel discussions which will focus primarily on the following themes:

Leadership in Museums and Cultural Organizations
The Social Impact of Museums: Communities, Human Rights, Social Justice
Digital Transformation and Digital Skills
Greening the Museum and Wellness for Visitors and Staff

On December 3 and 4, the CoMuseum will present a series of online workshops and master classes for museum and cultural professionals. The working language will be English.

Website: http://thecomuseum.org/

Registration is open through 30 November.

Working language for the Conference and the workshops is English.

Venue: Digital Sphere

Towards a sustainable tourism in the peripheral Danube areas

DANube Urban Brand + Building Regional and Local Resilience through the Valorization of Danube’s Cultural Heritage

DANUrB is a new EU funded project started on July 2020 and leaded by the Budapest University of Technology and Economics of Budapest. It involves 17 Partners coming from 6 East European Countries: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia.
The project aims to reactivate underused cultural heritage and resources in shrinking settlements of Danube river’s peripheral and border regions, to create new possibilities and make its towns and regions attractive again.
Scope of DANUrB is to use the potentials of an international visible system and turn peripheral situations into advantages by attracting visitors and inhabitants interested in the Danube but searching for slow life with authentic values.
The main objective is the capacity building for local stakeholders in order to enable them to cooperate locally and interregionally for the valorization of their Danube related heritage with local actions under a unified brand strong enough to increase local prosperity and international tourist attractiveness.
Therefore DANUrB+ fosters sustainable use of cultural heritage and resources (PSO) in peripheral regions, demonstarting that this usage is the most beneficial to local communities and translating interregional principles to Action Plans for real local cooperatives.

The project consists of 4 horizontal thematic areas of work:

Interregional network as a possibility
Shrinking cities as a challenge
Locals and their cooperation as a development asset
Heritage as a tool

The topics are carried out by 4 work packages: Research, Planning tools, Education and Actions.
The DANUrB+ project has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the REACH project for the mutual support and dissemination of researches and activities related to the promotion and enhancement of the resilient rural and small towns heritage. The poster of DANUrB+ is available in the REACH digital gallery which collects all contributions coming from the project’s community.

Download the DANUrB+ poster here
DANUrB+ website
#DANUrB

exhibition "ecstasy" will be on show from 26th November in the platform PARALLEL

Online exhibition of digital sculptures by Hande Sekerciler at JD Malat Gallery

JD Malat Gallery is proud to present ecstasy, a solo exhibition by leading Turkish sculptor Hande Sekerciler.

From the 26th of November until the 1st of January, ecstasy will bring together a selection of three-dimensional digital sculptures to explore the theme of the human ‘self’ as well as present a new mode of engagement with contemporary sculpture.
This new series of three-dimensional digital sculptures will be presented on JD Malat Gallery’s online exhibition platform, PARALLEL: https://jdmalat.com/parallel/

By situating Sekerciler’s sculptures in a virtual exhibition space, JD Malat Gallery seeks to highlight the progressive nature of Sekerciler’s practice and aims to underline her role as a protagonist in the field of contemporary sculpture and digital art.

Hande’s selected works on JD Malat Gallery: https://jdmalat.com/artists/hande-sekerciler/

While Sekerciler’s sculptures share similarities with Hellenistic and Renaissance sculpture, such as the nude form, as well as smoothed and patinated surfaces, Sekerciler does not focus on the notion of the ‘ideal’ that was extensively explored during these periods. The figures in ecstasy reject clothing and even hair to give little insight into a specific identity. This rejection of identifiable materials and form serve to free the sculptural figures from gendered and societal labels, urging the viewer to contemplate the body’s existence as independent from societal structures. Through a method of what Sekerciler calls, ‘purification’, ecstasy presents figures at ‘peace with their sexuality and orientation who embrace their existence’. Thus, this new body of work presents an important axis for reflection of the human ‘self’ in a contemporary age.

The figures in ecstasy represent Sekerciler’s search for ways of incorporating digital technology into traditional arts. To create the digital sculptures, Sekerciler undertakes a complex process that involves creating sketches on an ipad and turning this into three-dimensional models by using the sculpting software ZBrush. Sekerciler then uses Substance Painter to achieve different digital surface textures, such as ‘virtual patina’. These digital models become a step in Sekerciler’s process of creating bronze sculptures in real life. Using the digital models for reference, Sekerciler develops wax models which are then used to prepare high temperature resistant molds for casting bronze. After a process of pouring, cooling and ‘levelling’, the bronze sculptures are then completed with a unique chemical patina, developed by Sekerciler herself.

The digital sculptures in ecstasy have come to life through Sekerciler’s collaboration with GarageAtlas, a creative XR Studio that has been instrumental in developing the virtual exhibition space. The decision to only showcase the digital sculptures in a virtual exhibition space, rather than the bronze sculptures in an IRL exhibition demonstrates the artistic merit of the digital preparatory process and highlights the progressive and technologically advanced nature of Sekerciler’s practice.

By displaying digital sculptures exclusively in an online exhibition space, ecstasy presents a new avenue for contemplating the modes of engagement with sculpture. For centuries sculpture has been viewed in real life as part of architecture, as an art object in museums and galleries or as an object of worship. Against the backdrop of the current pandemic and with in-person engagement becoming increasingly difficult, Sekerciler seeks to develop digital sculpture and online viewing experiences in an effort to engage her international audience no matter where they are. In doing so, ecstasy challenges traditional methods of viewing sculpture and in turn highlights the inclusive nature of virtual viewing experiences. Therefore, ecstasy presents a new trajectory in the historiography of sculpture, technology and the digital arts.

ecstasy resonates with the contemporary age and highlights the innovative nature of Sekerciler’s work, demonstrating why her work continues to fascinate a global audience. Sekerciler has exhibited internationally in notable collections, which include Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, and the Artist Causa Gallery, Thessaloniki, Greece. She was also awarded artist residencies including Artist Alliance International, New York, Unlimited, New York and 18th Street, Los Angeles. As co-founder of Piskel New Media Residency, in collaboration with Turkiye Bilisim Vakfi, and as director and curator of Augmented Istanbul, Sekerciler continues to use her expertise in new technologies and sculpture to develop new platforms of engagement.

JD Malat Art Gallery – website: https://jdmalat.com/

online, 3-5 December 2020

[Webinar] Art, AI and Everything Else

For over two decades, Art Center Nabi in Seoul has been committed to exploring the role of the arts and new technologies to gain new insight in human possibilities and addressing social problems. Nabi has invited artists to develop projects that use technology to overcome social divisions, counter to racial violence, debunk stereotypes, as well as nurture emotional connectedness, cultural engagement, political participation. In general, it has promoted the role of the arts in enhancing social solidarity and operated on the assumption that it can improve the quality of life.

In celebration of two decades of practice Nabi will host a series of web-based seminars.

3 web-based symposia spread over 3 days 3 – 5 December 2020

More info and registration link: http://www.nabi.or.kr/en/page/board_view.php?brd_idx=1084&brd_id=project

Session 1.
Art, Technology and the Cosmos
3 Dec 2020 (Thu) 18:00 ~ 19:30 (KST) / 10:00 ~ 11:30 (CET)

A pan-demic is a good time to evoke the pan-demos. Mobility has become a central feature of contemporary society. Art has been used as an advocate for flow, interaction and exchange, as well as a way of opposing disruption, exploitation and inequality. In this first seminar we throw open the scale of enquiry and experimentation. Art is a technology, and Cosmos is the space-time of everything. However, an ancient definition of cosmos refers to the activity of making a space-time attractive for the Other. The recent developments in contemporary art have been directed towards removing political boundaries and enhancing sociality. When schedules, plans, and models for organizing our ‘liquid life’ are on pause, space-time becomes an object of anxiety. This first session will be surveying the history of technology and how it brings us to the point that we find ourselves. We will zoom out to the widest questions and zoom in to specific examples from recent contemporary practices in art and technology. We will explore the possibilities for critique, and the possibility for art to stimulate sociality and solidarity in an era of masks and the fear of contagion that too easily becomes fear of community. How will artists conduct face-to-face encounters and operate skin-to-skin exchanges? Is a virtual public sphere and life on Zoom enough?

Session 2.
The poverty of philosophy after AI
4 Dec 2020 (Fri) 18:00 ~ 19:30 (KST) / 10:00 ~ 11:30 (CET)

In 2008 Chris Anderson declared that the data deluge had brought about the end of theory. The speed of computation had not only marginalised but eliminated a model of thinking that involved qualitative evaluation. How do we reimagine the role of thinking in action? Is there action without thinking? Has thinking been superseded by technologies of capture, storage and processing? AI and algorithms have been internalised as a normal feature of everyday life. Their banality eludes our attention while summoning deep anxieties. Do we have a vocabulary and conceptual understanding that can keep pace with this change? In this seminar we explore the disjunction between technological advances, modes of thought and models of governance. We question the belatedness of philosophy’s grasp on technology and the consequences of the differential speeds, places and temporalities where technology, thought and politics operate.

Session 3.
Humanizing the Machine/ Mechanizing the Human
5 Dec 2020 (Sat) 14:00 ~ 15:30 (KST) / 06:00 ~ 07:30 (CET)

Tools have always been part of how we define human ‘nature’. Our everyday use can make them feel like parts of our bodies. In habitual use there is constant feedback between us and them. With time and use the border between body and tool dissolves. Now tools also appear as models, but all models, for good or ill, fail us. The dominant understanding of AI flips between two models: either we maintain mastery over the tool, or the technology acquires sufficient agency to consume its master. This seminar goes beyond this dominant paradigm to consider a more fundamental question: what is the intelligence in technology? How do we align our social values and human desires with the dynamism of tools that also remake ‘us’ in the process of using them? If we go beyond the dichotomy between AI as engine of utopia and AI as corporate and exploitative logic, can we also imagine a form of AI that has no utility, one that is not designed according to a service function? Would this perspective allow us to consider ecological modes of intelligence not confined to the human mind, but distributed across and constituted by urban, natural and technological environments?

enabling better collaboration between Universities and Cultural Heritage Institutions to test participative approaches engaging citizens

CitizenHeritage, citizen science and participation in cultural heritage

CitizenHeritage, funded within the Erasmus+ programme of European Commission, takes the Citizen Science approach to the world of cultural heritage, where the digital realm creates new opportunities to reach out to broader audiences and facilitate community building.

The project encourages Citizen Science in cultural heritage through the application of crowdsourcing and co-creation tools leveraging open digital collections of European heritage. CitizenHeritage includes three universities (KU Leuven, National Technical University of Athens and Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), two Europeana domain aggregators (Photoconsortium and European Fashion Heritage Association) and one specialized SME (Web2Learn).

image courtesy Digital Humanities Lab – University of Basel

The project will deliver a full cycle of Citizen Science activities across two years (2021-2023), that will allow citizens to contribute both on a short and middle to long-term period to participate in higher education and scientific open access outputs. The activities will be coordinated by the universities through their scientific networks and integrated with the university training of students.

These events are planned online for 2021 but hopefully in physical venues later, if that will be possible according to the development of covid-19 situation in Europe. The events are realized in collaboration with a network of European partners, and comprise:

workshops to enable citizen participation and citizen science activities with digital cultural heritage collections
seminars and outreach events to disseminate the project’s methodology, resources, tools and results and enable further replication and uptake by others, thus multiplying the project’s impactto a larger community of stakeholders

Discover more about the project and events: https://www.citizenheritage.eu/

Sign up to the CitizenHeritage newletter to stay in contact: https://www.citizenheritage.eu/contact/

call to action for experts and culture lovers to add descriptive tags to digital collections about Chinese heritage in Europeana

PAGODE’s crowdsourcing campaign: “Scenes and People from China”

PAGODE is a project about Chinese heritage in Europeana. The Europeana portal gives access to about 60 million digital cultural heritage items of all sort, from thousands of cultural heritage institutions throughout Europe. Rich and descriptive information to be associated to the images is vital for making this digital cultural heritage meaningful and searchable by users.

In addition to offering in Europeana a wealth of new cultural content, digitized at the highest level of quality, witnessing the links between Europe and Cina caross century, PAGODE has the objective to improve the information available on Europeana from other Chinese-related collections. To do this, the project recently launched a crowdsourcing campaign that allows researchers, students and culture lovers join the effort of annotating and curating photographic materials about Chinese culture that are currently published in Europeana.

PAGODE’s crowdsourcing campaign is accessible here:https://crowdheritage.eu/en/china

By using a very intuitive crowdsourcing platform, anyone can look at selected heritage photographs from Europeana and add descriptive tags to identify places, historic periods, pictorial styles or photographic qualities (contrast, landscape, portrait, perspective…). The annotations will then be fed back by PAGODE to Europeana to improve the information available.

The PAGODE crowdsourcing campaign is entitled “Scenes and People from China”, currently comprising two volumes of images that offer a glimpse of life in China throughout the 20th century as well as portraits featuring people with Chinese roots or ancestors.

a new thematic collection dedicated to the stories of the 20th century is published on Europeana portal, with interesting stories and digital cultural heritage content

Europeana XX: Century of Change celebrates today a great milestone!

img.: the Europeana XX Thematic Collection in Europeana.

EU funded Europeana XX: Century of Change project celebrates today the launch of a new Europeana Thematic Collection: a dedicated area in the Europeana portal to showcase special cultural heritage collections and compelling stories about the 20th century and its social, political and economical changes – as documented in photographs, videos, paintings and files, all carefully selected by the Europeana XX Editorial Team.

The project was kicked off in March with the aims of enriching Europeana with new, high quality and reusable collections to depict the histories from our recent past, and of adding new user features for better engagement with Europeana’s online collections. Among the other partners, the consortium includes five Europeana aggregators who bring into the project cultural heritage materials from all over Europe.

The beta version of the page is planned to grow and expand in the next months, as the project partners continue their work, offering more galleries, virtual exhibitions, new data, and more stories!

Europeana XX Thematic Collection: https://www.europeana.eu/en/highlights-from-the-20th-century

The project Europeana XX is co-financed by the European Union in the framework of CEF Connecting Europe Facility Programme under GA n. INEA/CEF/ICT/A2019/1932087.