EPOCH The European Network of Excellence on ICT Applications to Cultural Heritage contract no. IST

What is EPOCH EPOCH is a Network of Excellence under FP6 dealing with ICT ( Information & Communication Technologies ) Applications to Cultural Heritage Kick-Off: April 2004 End of EC funding: March 2008 Partners: more than 85, from most of the European countries, but also from USA, South Africa, Australia, and the Far East Mission: Foster Integration at a European Level

Which needs we address Proliferation Too many “bricks”, but how many “houses”? Foster cross- fertilization Think globally Re-use results Adopt a holistic view Aim at durability and sustainability Give young people a chance Lack of coordination Overlapping (duplicating?) projects Fragmentation Lots of big projects on small issues What happens to project consortia when the project ends? Insufficient communication Do culture professionals trust technology? Do engineers understand culture? Limited opportunities for training

Sensitivities – what makes Cultural Heritage unique? Physical Cultural Heritage  Lasting legacy of human experience  Represents lives and aspirations of the past Everyone has heritage (cf health, education) All elements unique, vulnerable and fragile BUT there are few votes (and hence tax support) in preservation Revenues require access (education, tourism, entertainment)

Embedded interdisciplinarity Definition of success depends upon perspective (heritage v technology) Tension between access and preservation Physical access threatens preservation through wear and tear and environmental exposure Access at some level is a prerequisite for interpretation and to realising potential Technologists should try to ease tension

Facts v interpretation Our “knowledge” is almost always interpretation of fragile evidence Interpretation is normally ambiguous Events even more uncertain than artefacts Accuracy requires uncertainty to be shown Too much uncertainty and/or too many alternatives lead to confused messages This is another challenge

Cultural Interpretation Beyond the factual Interpretation needs context for both original circumstance and viewed Much tangible heritage relates to religion or war – both emotive and multi-faceted One culture’s heroic victory may be another’s dictatorial oppression In general the older the artefacts or events the less emotive the interpretation

Grand Challenges 1.To use technology to enhance preservation and scholarship in cultural heritage  Accuracy and preservation v data volume  Ontologies and searches (organising and representing knowledge) 2.To bring history to life for the citizen  Digital reconstruction  Story telling  Visitor experiences  Internet applications  Education and Tourism benefit

Epoch Activity Field recording and data capture Data organization and standards Reconstruction and visualization Heritage education and communication Sustainability of heritage projects in order to produce A joint research infrastructure A complete toolkit to create ICT applications for CH A training framework Integrate EEC into the EC – standards, knowledge transfer and cooperation

The pipeline The key concept is the pipeline: Produce valuable cultural communication by processing data with ICT Acquisition Documentation Processing Archiving Management Curatorship Preservation Image proc. Enhancing Reconstruct. Story-telling Communication INFORMATION

Management WP1 = coordination is provided by the University of Brighton Four core partners Task forces working on activities Stakeholders input and feedback Review college formed by experts Open, cross-culture community with permeable borders Executive Committee Brighton PIN, Ename, KU-Leuven Board of Directors 18 members representing expertise, constituencies, etc. General Assembly 85 partners + affiliates

Activities WP2=integration Co-ordinate partners’ work Collect stakeholders needs and feedback Watch the technology market and assess the potential impact of forthcoming ones Undertake the implementation of showcases ENAME Images from EPOCH’s showcases 1 and 2

Activities: WP3=joint research Define and create the common infrastructure Lead research activity on “missing rings” in the production chain Integrate existing components with new, targeted tools KU-Leuven Images from EPOCH showcases 3 and 4

Activities: WP4=spreading excellence Manage a one-stop portal for ICT applications to CH Foster standardization Publish authoritative reports Ensure mobility and training framework Organize events & dissemination PIN Images from EPOCH showcases 7 and 8

Activities in 2004 Establish the network, setup the infrastructure and provide services Produce showcases using existing technology 1.On Site Reconstruction Experience 2.Multimodal Interface Safe Presentation of Valuable Objects 3.Tools for Stratigraphic Data Recording 4.Multilingual Avatars 5.E-tourism through Cultural Routes 6.Avatar-based Interactive Storytelling 7.Archaeological Documentation for the Semantic Web 8.Image-based Modeling Start dissemination Produce reports

Dissemination & training Bursaries & mobility Training (interim):  Assign money to prepare new courses  Fund preparation – not teaching  Support less-favoured areas Perform surveys and produce reports  Training needs and offer in Europe  State of the Union: policies, practices & research Organize/support/attend events Publications

State of the Union Report Yearly report on  Policies  Practices  Research  Needs in Europe, to be printed and circulated  Availing of correspondents  Interviewing stakeholders  Selected articles on specific issues  Creating an on-line database

Identify training needs  Evaluate statistics  Perform a survey  Interview stakeholders Identify training offer  Perform a survey  Detail relevant courses  Promote good practices Propose strategies & actions  CHIRON  EST MARIE-CURIE Project  Training project on Cultural Heritage Informatics Training needs & offer

Training activity in Summer 2004 Four courses planned with 100+ participants  York, UK (2)  Busteni, RO  Szazsalombatta, HU 12 scolarships granted (7 women) Over 100 h of training Manuals will be available in English and national languages

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Acknowledgement EPOCH is funded by the European Commission under the Community’s Sixth Framework Programme, contract no However, this presentation reflects only the authors’ views and the European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.