EPOCH

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EPOCH

• The European Network of Excellence on ICT
  Applications to Cultural Heritage
• contract no. IST-2002-507382

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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

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Which needs we address

• Proliferation
• Too many bricks, but how many houses?

Think globally
Lack of coordination Overlapping (duplicating?)
projects
Re-use results
Adopt a holistic view

• Fragmentation
• Lots of big projects on small issues
• What happens to project consortia when the
  project ends?

Aim at durability and sustainability
Foster cross-fertilization

• Insufficient communication
• Do culture professionals trust technology?
• Do engineers understand culture?

Give young people a chance
Limited opportunities for training
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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)

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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

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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

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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 cultures heroic victory may be anothers
  dictatorial oppression
• In general the older the artefacts or events the
  less emotive the interpretation

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Grand Challenges

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

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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

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The pipeline

• The key concept is the pipeline
• Produce valuable cultural communication by
  processing data with ICT

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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

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ActivitiesWP2integration

• 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 EPOCHs showcases 1 and 2
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Activities WP3joint 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
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Activities WP4spreading 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
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Activities in 2004

• Establish the network, setup the infrastructure
  and provide services
• Produce showcases using existing technology
• On Site Reconstruction Experience
• Multimodal Interface Safe Presentation of
  Valuable Objects
• Tools for Stratigraphic Data Recording
• Multilingual Avatars
• E-tourism through Cultural Routes
• Avatar-based Interactive Storytelling
• Archaeological Documentation for the Semantic Web
• Image-based Modeling
• Start dissemination
• Produce reports

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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

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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

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Training needs offer

• 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
• è CHIRON
• EST MARIE-CURIE Project
• Training project on Cultural Heritage Informatics

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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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More information

• www.epoch-net.org

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• Acknowledgement
• EPOCH is funded by the European Commission under
  the Communitys Sixth Framework Programme,
  contract no. 507382.
• 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.