Author: Admin_spatial_media

[Horizon Europe | Website]

We are excited to introduce IMPULSE — IMmersive digitisation: uPcycling cULtural heritage towards new reviving StratEgies — an EU-funded project launched on February 2024, that enters the digitisation processes of cultural heritage. Here, it will radiate waves of transformation of how we engage and interact with our cultural heritage, breathing life into timeless stories waiting to be told anew. 

As such, IMPULSE will connect researchers, artists, cultural heritage practitioners, CCSIs, local institutions, and other relevant stakeholders to work and explore together immersive narratives, reaching out to diverse audiences across Europe and beyond.

Objectives:

1. Enhance accessibility to cultural heritage through XR technology, fostering diverse narratives and audience engagement.

2. Improve access and presentation of digitized cultural content, supporting education and creativity within the Metaverse.

3. Streamline digitization processes for immersive environments, prioritizing usability for education, arts, and CCSIs.5. Foster collaboration and capacity building in immersive digitization through tailored engagement platforms and initiatives.

4. Develop legal frameworks and solutions to address risks and barriers in utilizing cultural heritage data within immersive technologies.

Partners:

IMPULSE is a HORIZON EUROPE project, coordinated by Uniwersytet Jagiellonski (Poland), and developed in collaboration with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (Italy),  Universita Ta Malta (Malta), Heritage Malta, Filmuniversitat Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (Germany), Ethniko Kai Kapodistriako Panepistimio Athinon (Greece), Magna Zmien Foundation (Malta), Associazione Clust-ER Industrie Culturali e Creative (Italy), K8 Institut Fuer Strategische Aesthetik GGMBH (Germany), and Explodedview sp. z o.o. (Poland)

[Erasmus+ KA2 – Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices | KA226 – Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness | 01-05-2021 – 30-04-2023]

Background

The ErasmusXr project “Experience and immersive technologies – from creative practice to educational Theory” was prepared for the special call KA226 – Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic. When preparing the project in the summer of 2020, we did not yet know how the pandemic would develop and how long it would last.

Nevertheless, we were experiencing more and more the development of digital technologies (including immersive technologies), which is now called WEB 4.0 and virtual worlds
(https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3718 ). The COVID-19 epidemic reduced our social activity by locking us in our homes and led to an unprecedented activity in the digital world, forcing not only entire areas of culture and education to move their activities into the virtual realm, but also to seek new ways to engage and enhance participation in this form. This was the main external factor motivating us to undertake the project. Therefore, a project was prepared that addressed the urgent need to enrich existing educational programs for both cultural and media managers, but also for artists aspiring to connect with audiences in the digital space.

Objectives

The main goals of the project were:
1. To develop educational offerings for cultural and media managers and artists on new immersive technologies such as XR, VR, AR, MR and how to use to engage audiences, and
2. Increase skills and competencies in designing and evaluating experiences using immersive technologies to effectively manage culture in the digital realm.

To achieve these goals, we decided to focus on increasing the knowledge and competence of academic staff on immersive experience design and evaluation through the implementation of training courses, the development of open educational resources (OER) on the topic of immersive experience management in culture (IO3 and IO4), but also building an open attitude among students and staff to new methods and technologies – offering participation in a summer and winter school.

We believed that we would be able to achieve this, but we did not anticipate that under such difficult conditions the project would become popular and recognized throughout Europe. Due to the specific moment, we managed to join the mainstream of change and become a positive example illustrating the HE sector’s activities in XR and Virtual Worlds development.

Implementation

In the project we implemented:
– Training activities (C1 and C6) carried out by partners from Greece and Malta due to their experience and extensive technical and human resources,
– a summer school organized in Malta,
– winter school – as a test of the Jagiellonian University whether it will be able to implement the courses on its own,
As well as we developed as the results of our work in groups (WG) under the guidance of the coordinator (WGC) following outputs:
IO1 – curriculum, WGC: Dr. Katarzyna Kopeć UJ
IO2 – syllabuses of 6 courses on immersive technologies, WGC: Dr. Marta Materska- Samek UJ
IO3 – Open educational resources – collection on Zotero, WGC: Dr. Adnan Hadzi MU,
IO4 – Handbook: experience management and immersive technologies in the form of a collection of articles in two volumes of the quarterly journal Media Management, ed./WGC: Dr. Anna Modzelewska and Dr. Malwina Popiołek.
In addition, there were 4 project meetings (TPM) and two dissemination events (E1 in Lodz, E2 in Greece).

Results

The particular outcome of the project is the improvement of the knowledge of academic staff and the development by them of work (IOs) that allow the introduction of new content of the education. The package of results consists of the development of the program (IO1) syllabuses IO2, OER – IO3 for the following topics included in the form of courses:
1. introduction to CinematicVR (including the language of CinematicVR, comparison with the language of film, working with an actor, staging): WGC: Prof. Krzysztof Pijarski ŁFS,
2. Immersive experience level 1 – generated environments (digital scenery, virtual studio, 6 degrees of freedom) – WGC: Dr. Adnan Hadzi MU, Dr. Filip Pudło ŁFS – 2 ECTS
3. immersive experience level 2 – design and evaluation – WGC: Prof. Dimitris Charitos NKUA – 2 ECTS
4. production management (workflow) – WGC: Marta Materska-Samek JU/ Dr. Małgorzata Kotlińska ŁFS (tbc) – 2 ECTS
5. VR financing: green production, business models and European policies- WGC: Dr. Marta Materska-Samek JU- 2 ECTS
6. legal, social and political aspects of immersive media production- WGC: Dr. Marzena Baranska JU- 4 ECTS
Each WGC had 4- 8 people who had their own workspace on teams/sharepoint and met mainly online, but also during LTT.

Partners

Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Panstwowa Wyzsza Szkola Filmowa, Telewizyjna I Teatralna Im. Leona Schillera W Lodzi, Universita Ta Malta, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

In the context of the FP7 project SmartSantander, International collaboration with Mobics Ltd., (Oct.2012- Sept. 2013)

Project funded by the European Union through the 7th Framework Programme of the European Community for research and technological development.

The research team of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens worked on the design and evaluation of a mobile experiment in cooperation with Mobics (a start-up of the University of Athens) and the Transport and Transportation Infrastructure Department of the School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), for the promotion of smart mobility. The application was developed for the city of Santander in Spain and uses the wide network of sensors that exist there to promote an ecological concept of moving within the city and to enhance the use of mass transportation media. It provides the possibility of smart parking, detailed monitoring of the MMM routes and complete information on road conditions so that the citizens could organize their travels more efficiently.