IMPULSE – IMmersive digitisation: uPcycling cULtural heritage towards new reviving StratEgie

IMPULSE – IMmersive digitisation: uPcycling cULtural heritage towards new reviving StratEgie

[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)

GEM – Green Education in Media

GEM – Green Education in Media

[Erasmus+ | Website]

GEM aims to reconnect media curricula to today’s environmental reality by introducing subjects and methods that reflect on and work at the intersection between environmental reality and digitality. “Environmental reality” encompasses nature and its phenomena, as well as the interrelation of man-made environments and the natural environment.
The curricula of study programmes related to digital media design and production currently focus on the creation of digital and virtual worlds. These worlds occur in different forms, such as storyworlds in filmmaking, serial writing and games, virtual explorable worlds in XR and digital communities in social media design. While digital skills and competencies are important to the students in today’s labour market, the related study programmes tend to create a kind of “digital bubble” of their own, neglecting the impact of digital technology on our natural environment.

GEM explores these challenges from different perspectives, which will each be pursued in dedicated work-packages:
WP2 – Alternative media learning spaces
WP3 – Environmental Impact of Media Design & Production
WP4 – Stories of environmental impact and climate change
WP5 – Building an environmental media curriculum

Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership between nine partners:

Together they are working on:

  • Heightening environmental awareness and fight against climate change
  • Supporting digital and green capabilities of the higher education sector
  • Disseminating green skills among teachers and students
  • Creating new, innovative or joint sustainable curricula or courses
  • Developing digital content, technologies and practices

ERASMUS XR – Experience and immersive technologies – from creative practice to educational theory

ERASMUS XR – Experience and immersive technologies – from creative practice to educational theory

[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

Frachitectures/Murmuration (E/M/D/L)

Frachitectures/Murmuration (E/M/D/L)

Frachitectures (2015)

Artists: Spatial Media Research Group (D. Charitos, I.Theona, C.Rizopoulos, P.Papageorgopoulou) and A. St-Onge

Performed at the Satosphere (SAT, Montreal) during and after the Immersion IX Symposium for the EMDL project  (emdl.eu)

Frachitectures was a part of the Murmuration piece, created by: Dimitris Charitos, Luke Christison, Phil Mayer, Cameron Micallef, Lee Nutbean, Alexandre St-Onge, Mike Phillips, Olivier Rhéaume, Haris Rizopoulos, Ben Stern, Iouliani Theona, Penny Papageorgopoulou

http://www.emdl.eu/activities/montreal-jun-15/show/article/part-3-murmur…

Organizations involved in the creation of Murmuration: Laboratory of New Technologies in Communication, Education and the Mass Media (UoA NTLab), Athens / i-DAT (Institute of Digital Art and Technology), Plymouth

Murmuration is an interactive performative immersive installation involving multiple members of the audience in interacting with and manipulating audio-visual objects, in a virtual environment projected onto the SAT FullDome environment, thus directing the way the experience evolves while being actively immersed int it. the Murmuration experience is about playful interaction with digital particle swarms and real-time manipulation of virtual/physical audio-visual objects.

Murmuration [muttering of low, indistinct, whispers / abnormal heart sounds / mass cloud like flocking] is a series of trans-scalar and recursive transitions from the imaginary to infinity: i∞. Constructed from bio-imaging technologies and modeled fractured architectures, the low-poly-aesthetic of Murmuration navigates its audience through playful interaction with particle swarms of digital detritus and real-time manipulation of virtual/physical audio-visual objects and the environmental experiences afforded by their continuously transforming arrangement. Algorithms of repulsion and attraction maintain the cohesion of nano/molecular landscapes harvested by atomic force. Bio-forms, like artificial organs, and boney architectures, temporarily seem to come to life, create cavities and cavernous voids, conjuring uncanny atmospheres of elation, intrigue and awe.

EMDL project website: http://www.emdl.eu/    

Detour

Detour

Coti K., Dimitris Charitos, Vasilis Bourdakis, Evelyn Gavrylou, Aris Tsagrasoulis, Andreas Andreou, Dimitris Skoufis

An interactive 10-channel audio, 4-channel video installation 

Exhibited at Thisseio in the context of the “Athens by Art” Public Space Exhibition, organized by the Municipality of Athens and AICA Hellas

Detour is an interactive multisensory environment, created by the interdisciplinary group VE_design and specifically designed for very busy area of the urban context. It functions as a detour from the crowdedness and introversion of city life towards an artificial wonderland; within this site-specific installation space, the visitor is invited to participate in a communication game with the “detour” system as well as with other visitors.

This artificial “landscape” has a memory. People are invited to interact and intentionally provide their voices and images to the system. These are then captured, processed, distorted and dynamically positioned, in real time, within the 8-channel audio system of the installation and on an appropriately placed projection. Consequently, differently processed versions of these sounds and images are randomly selected and communicated again to future visitors of the environment. In this sense, “Detour” is an artificial “landscape” which remembers the voices and images of people who visited it and randomly recalls them, thus redefining all captured raw audiovisual content. Visitors may also affect the way that sounds are being displayed by appropriately moving their body in relation to certain elements of the environment.

The real content of “Detour” is produced by the people themselves. Human presence and action activates a series of pre-designed processes which finally formulate the spatial experience afforded by the installation space. The material form of “detour” consists of a wooden platform, positioned along a very busy pedestrian walkway. “Slices” of this platform are being dislocated and risen in order to articulate a series of artificial, abstractly formed “trees”, which carry the input/output components for collecting and communicating audiovisual content. The end points of these “trees” spray particles of water, increasing the moisture of the installation’s atmosphere and creating a visually surreal result when combined with the lighting elements at night.

“Detour” is a sound-enhanced, interactive architectural environment, which activates the senses, functions as a behaviour amplifier and supports communication amongst its visitors, with the support of its lighting, microclimate, and video elements.

180°

180°

Dimitris Charitos, Coti K.

An audio-visual installation (5-channel video, CCTV and 4-channel audio)

Exhibited @ 4 Rooms exhibition, Kappatos Gallery, Athens, Greece, 2001

Curated by C. Galanopoulou

 

 

European Mobile Lab for Artistic Research (EMDL)

European Mobile Lab for Artistic Research (EMDL)

[CULTURE Programme 2007-13 – Cooperation], Projects with Third Countries (Strand 1.3.5), European Commission Education, Audiovisual& Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) (Jan 2014 – Sep 2015)

EMDL project website: http://www.emdl.eu/    

This project aimed to facilitate interdisciplinary research on the subject of creating interactive immersive experiences and narratives in digital FullDome environments. More specifically, the main objective of the project was the collaborative creation of experimental, artistic content and immersive experiences for FullDomes, by adopting a design research methodology and by involving an interdisciplinary teams of experts (artists, scientists and academics from universities and cultural organisations in Montreal, Vienna, Plymouth, Dresden, Berlin and Athens).

In the course of this project, several workshops have been held in various European cities and Montreal, Canada with the purpose of bringing together a number of experienced content creators and scientists for experimenting with the process of creating interactive, immersive FullDome experiences, ultimately aiming to investigate and understand the communicative potential and characteristics of the FullDome as a medium.

The Spatial Media Research Group and the NTLab organized the first workshop in the series of events centred on dome content creation, and the members of the group actively participated in the creation process for the events that followed. Additionally, the Spatial Media Research Group team headed by D. Charitos, in collaboration with the research teams of the above organizations, conducted a series of studies on various aspects of the User Experience, as well as on the creative process and the characteristics of the FullDome as a medium. Finally the research team designed and implemented a multi-user virtual environment, as a performative, interactive installation, titled “Murmuration”, which was presented for 3 weeks in 2015, at the FullDome of the SAT center in Montreal and at the FullDomeUK festival in 2016 in England. 

MITOS

MITOS

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.

LOcation-based Communication Urban NETwork (LOCUNET)

LOcation-based Communication Urban NETwork (LOCUNET)

[Regional Operational Programme for Attica 2000-2006] (May 2006 – May 2008)

LOCUNET was a research project that aimed to investigate the novel forms of communication that emerge as a result of the convergence of geographical positioning services, mobile communications, and graphical user interfaces. The result of this convergence is the appearance of locative media. More specifically, the result of this research programme was a theoretical model of the use of locative media and the forms of social interaction that may take place during locative media use, within the contemporary urban context. This model is expected to inform the design and development of locative media. For the purposes of evaluating the proposed model, a location-based multi-user communication system was designed and developed and used for supporting an activity comprising numerous mobile users in a central location in the city of Athens.