Latest Entry
by paulasimoes Feb 21, 2013 Events, Networking, News, Projects
Next Saturday, 23th of February, the Open Data Day will be celebrated around the world with several hackthons:
It’s a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations and publish analyses using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world’s local, regional and national governments.
Check the wiki to see what will happen in your city and join in.
If you are in Portugal, the Open Data Day will be celebrated by the Transparência Hackday in Porto [website in Portuguese]. The workgroup already created several projects with open data like “Demo.Cratica“, an easy way to browse the portuguese parliament’s documents, “Despesa Pública“, that allows citizens to browse through the public contracts or GeoDevolutas, that maps empty homes.
In today’s world of abundance, access to data is not enough. We need to create tools that can work that data and present it in a meaningful way.
Recent Entries
by paulasimoes Feb 18, 2013 Call for papers, Events
A call for papers/posters and videos to the 18th International Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies, that will take place in Vienna, Austria, between 11th and 13th of November of 2013 are now open.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Urban Archaeology and Correct Documentation” with several categories that go from data standards and services for sharing archaeological documentation to 3D computer renderings and multimedia.
Check the conference’s website for more information here.
by paulasimoes Dec 13, 2012 News, Projects
The latest project from Google Cultural Institute is the launch of 42 online exhibitions concerning several historical events.
Google is partnering with several museums and cultural heritage institutions around the world to allow them to make available video, images and text – some of them online for the first time – about major events of the past century in context and in an engaging way – the website is a great experience on a tablet.
Each exhibition features a narrative which links the archive material together to unlock the different perspectives, nuances and tales behind these events. – in Google Blog
by paulasimoes Dec 12, 2012 News
Rijksmuseum launched the Rijks Studio, a beautiful designed website that invites the members of the public to create new works by reusing the digitized masterpieces of the museum.
The museum made available 125,000 works in high resolution free to use: members of the public can download the images and use them to create and decorate other objects from posters to smartphone & tablet covers, T-shirts or even their car:
And if you are a developer, you can register for a Rijksmuseum API. Check this webpage to see some of the mobile and web apps that were already created with Rijksmuseum’s content.
Taco Dibbits, Director of Collections, said: ”The Rijksmuseum is a museum for and of everyone, and with the launch of Rijks Studio we are excited to share the extensive collection with art lovers around the world using the latest digital technology. We created Rijks Studio based on the belief that the collection of the Rijksmuseum belongs to us all. The collection inspires, we want to unleash the artist in everyone.”
Go to Rijks Studio and start creating new works!
by paulasimoes Dec 10, 2012 Call for papers, Events, News
The main theme of the 18th International Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies will be “Documentation” and the calls to organise and chair a Session, Workshop or Round Table are open until 20th January 2013 (call proposal 200-300 words). See below the call and check the Conference website too.
Urban Archaeology and “Correct” documentation
Documenting the Data
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
(Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”)
Documentation of archaeological and cultural heritage sites is at the heart of the archaeological process and an important component in cultural heritage research and presentation. It is an essential step without which interpretation and analysis are not possible. It is what makes archaeology and cultural heritage “scientific”.
Maybe we are storytellers. If so, the type of story we tell is heavily influenced by our way of collecting and organising our archaeological data.
But can we speak about CORRECT documentation or should we talk only about usable and non-usable documentation?
The contemporary field is plagued by the involvement of operators each with their own new tools. They propose solutions and suggest methods but are often in blissful ignorance of the past investigations of the item, site or cultural heritage they are working on. New technology, however, has to support our research. Its use still depends on what we want to know next (our research). The best solution is to have an underpinning of basic documentation that allows any new researcher to easily access the core record. Then they can then enrich the documentation with the results of their new method, analysis and ideas.
It may be possible to build the ultimate recording system, but the information we feed it is always potentially unreliable. How do we knowwhen our record is good – has integrity? What indicates that it might be bad – lacking integrity?
Models are there to be used, not believed. Documentation is always for a certain purpose and depending on that purpose, a set of documentation may be regarded as good or bad, as “fit for purpose”. There will never be absolute “true”, “correct” or “right” documentation.
An abstract model of documentation should consist of the attributes we record of the real world traits that we observe. The set of attributes that we choose to record (out of the infinite set of possibilities) are the ones that our current state of knowledge and our research aims (and therefore designs) suggest will be the most useful to our current research aims/agenda. If we want to reuse data beyond the current research project/agenda then we must be very explicit about why, how and what we record. This is the so called “para” data and goes beyond meta data to include the “how” and “why” of data capture.
There are also very important points which should be should be considered.
1. Documentation should be available for scientific research
2. Documentation should be comparable with old and future documents
3. Documentation can be used for monitoring and preservation of national cultural heritage
4. Documentation has to be suitable to fight illicit actions. Without a good documentation it is hard or impossible to find stolen objects.
5. Documentation has to enable repair or reconstruction, at least virtually
CALL FOR SESSIONS, ROUND TABLES
Documentation is the main topic of this year’s conference and an import issue to consider in all our work.
We would like to ask for “Session proposals” that invite researchers using new technologies to come forward and discuss what documentation they are using and why.
Deadline: 20th January 2013
Abstract: 200-300 words (mailto:wolfgang.boerner@stadtarchaeologie.at)
Notification: 30th January 2013
by paulasimoes Dec 5, 2012 News
The first workshop in the series “Rethinking How We explain the Past” will be dedicated to “History, Simulations & Games” and will take place at CEIS20 [Map], at University of Coimbra, Portugal, this Friday, 7th December, 2012.
You can follow Rethinking How We explain the Past’s Facebook page to get updates on the workshop.
Programme (click to enlarge)
by paulasimoes Nov 21, 2012 Events, News
The third CreativeCH Workshop will be held tomorrow afternoon, in Brighton, UK, during VAST2012, one of the most important conferences in the field of technology and cultural heritage.
The CHIEF Award winner, Angela Maria Rossmaier, will be doing a presentation about the awarded contribution.
If you want to follow the workshop, you can do it via EuroMACHS Facebook page or via EuroMACHS Twitter.
If you are interested in this topic, feel free to discuss it @ CHIEF Forum here.
by paulasimoes Oct 8, 2012 News, Projects
The user with the best contribution to the CHIEF forum topic “Citizen Cultural Participation” will be able to travel to the Creative Cultural Heritage workshop happening during the VAST 2012 conference, being held in Brighton, UK on the 21st of November.
To enter in this competition, you just need to register in the CHIEF forum and make an entry in the discussion theme “Citizen Cultural Participation”, until the 12th of October.
This entry must be original, no longer than 700 words, and can be:
a) a presentation of a Cultural Heritage project, either executed with your participation or an idea that could be implemented;
b) an idea for a collaborative Cultural Heritage project;
c) a suggestion for the local CreativeCH Showcases.
To register in the CHIEF forum, follow the link: http://chief.uc.pt/forum/ucp.php?mode=register
After registering, you can submit your entry in either of the following topics or by creating a new topic here: http://chief.uc.pt/forum/viewforum.php?f=15
Detailed rules of this award can be found at: http://chief.uc.pt/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=15
by danielfeld Sep 9, 2012 News
The Gamescom Congress 2012 offered various discussions, speeches and workshops about different disciplines that deal with the immense topic of gaming. This year representatives of politics, science, pedagogics, business and young gamers themselfes actively discussed the perception of gaming in our culture.
Not in all, but in many cultures we find a somehow ambivalent relationship between the society and the medium of games. That may be because the gaming culture is new to the majority of the society. Something they haven’t grown up with and also something that they refuse to adapt to. It took time until 2008 to officially make videogames a cultural asset in germany. Nonetheless, the reputation of games is still not at the same level as books, movies, paintings or theater are. Even though lot of gaming titles feature multiple directors, composers, writers and designers, but when does a game become art? Aren’t many games already something notably valuable and to be incontrovertible considered art in the meaning of high-culture? Some say that it might still take some time until gaming will finally have made its way into society as an integrated aspect of culture. Until then we keep the discussions clean from cultural conservatism and distribute a view on gaming that develops aside from old patterns.
Read more here!
by Filipe Penicheiro Sep 4, 2012 News
Last opportunity to apply to the EuroMACHS programme at University of Coimbra, Portuga. Aplications open until September 12.
“European Heritage, Digital Media and the Information Society: a European Masters Programme” is the result of the partnership of the Universities of Coimbra (Portugal), Cologne (Germany), Graz (Austria), Salento (Italy and Turku (Finland). Each partner has extensive experience in creating innovative links between the Humanities and Digital Media namely on the areas of Multimedia production, digital libraries, e-learning, Historical Information Science and Historical-Geographical Information Systems.
For more information please visit http://www.euromachs.net/
RSS 
