Beauty or Beast? Results from the eCult Stakeholder Workshop in Hamburg

The eCult Stakeholder Workshop was hosted by the Kulturbehörde Hamburg, the city council for culture. Hamburg is the first German city that developed a "digital cultural strategy" and Dr. Dirk Petrat, head of the council, put forward the needs of the public sector: "Museums need guidance when, where, why and how to use technology".

Participants included representatives from museums, university, creative and cultural industries, intermediaries and young professionals.
Below, you can find the presentations, some statements and eventually, some conclusions that focus on 6 key words: Dialogue, target audience, technology strategy, technical staff, interoperability and last but not least, money.

Programme available here
Museum Panel provocative statement by Goranka Horjan
Intermediaries/artists/users' Panel provocative statement by Dejan Pestotnik

Presentations

A continuous dialogue – stakeholders’ needs and experts’ opinions, Eleni Toli, ATHENA
How do EU projects impact access to culture?, Francesca Spagnoli, MAXICULTURE
Mutual benefits - the magic formula for SMEs and Cultural Institutions, Philippe Wacker, EMF
Panel 1: ICT for Access to Cultural Heritage - the museum view, Goranka Horjan, European Museum Forum
Panel 2: Technology solutions for cultural scenarios – the techie view, George Ioannidis, MAXICULTURE
Virtual exhibition & authoring tool, Katerina Iatropoulou, EFG1914 Project
3D processing and anti-counterfeiting, Vito Cappellini, MAXICULTURE

Quotes

[Translate to English:] "Putting objects on the Internet is part of marketing, not a threat." (Aare Renzer, Art Museum of Estonia)
"Guidance for museums, somehow standardised, on how ICT could be involved in museum activities is needed! It does not exist, each museum wastes time and energy separately." (Dirk Petrat, Kulturbehörde Hamburg)
"Museums have always been virtual in a way as they have always extracted objects from their natural environments; hence it should be no problem for them to use new virtual technologies." (Goranka Horjan, The European Museum Forum)
"There are no beasts when the beauty of technology and beauty of culture comes together, there is just magic!" (Katerina Iatropoulou, EFG1914)
"I observed in the discussions that the main obstacles to technology is the mentality of CH people. It is the same case in Social Sciences and Humanities: people think technology prevents them from doing what they do." (Evelyn Gius, University of Hamburg)
"We need to overcome this traditionalism. In Italy, even big museums have no special technical staff." (Vito Cappellini, University of Florence/EVA Florence)
"Curators are afraid: the Internet might expose them, they may even lose control over 'their' treasures." (Goranka Horjan, TEMF)
"Don't forget the money issue!" (James Hemsley, EVA London)

Conclusions of the eCult Stakeholder Workshop

Hélene Herniou, eCult Expert, Museogeek, France

Aare Renzer, Art Museum of Estonia, IT development manager, Estonia

Goranka Horjan, European Museum Forum, Croatia

Martin Ritz, Fraun Hofer IGD, Germany

George Ioannidis, IN2, United Kingdom, Germany

Photos

The Beauty & the Beast: How to approach Culture and ICT?

eCult Stakeholder Workshop

21 January 2014
Hamburg, Germany

Venue:
Kulturbehörde Hamburg
Große Bleichen 3
20099 Hamburg
Germany

The eCult Stakeholder Workshop will take place on 21 January 2014 in Hamburg, at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. The aim of the workshop is to find ways and processes to bring technology providers, cultural heritage owners and users together. Panels and the audience will discuss approaches and processes in a participative way inspired by the “BarCamp” method in order to present recommendations and potential processes to close the gap between technology and culture.

At the end of the event, we would like to find answers to the following questions:
What could be the benefits for cultural heritage owners to engage in a dialogue with technology providers and implement ICT solutions?
How can such a dialogue be started and continuously maintained?
What need technology providers consider when approaching museums?
Where and when are user-centred solutions needed?

Workshop info:
www.ecultobservatory.eu/events/ecult-event-beauty-beast-how-approach-culture-and-ict

Workshop programme:
www.ecultobservatory.eu/sites/ecultobservatory.eu/files/eCult_Hamburg_Workshop_Agenda_V1701.pdf

Registration of participants:
www.ecultobservatory.eu/events/ecult-event-beauty-beast-how-approach-culture-and-ict/registration

VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION POSSIBLE
For those who cannot travel to Hamburg but would like to participate actively, there will be two ways to do so:

1. During the event, you will have the possibility to participate via Twitter, following @eCultObs.The hashtag will be given here some days before.
2. Before the event, you can send us your short statement for the BarCamp afternoon. Please use the contact form, Subject: Hamburg Workshop, and send us a statement or question directed to one of the three panels: Museum - Technology – Intermediaris/users.

Join us also on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/ecultobservatory

For more info contact us at:
www.ecultobservatory.eu/contact

Event partners:
European Society of Concurrent Enterprising Network (ESOCE), Italy
www.esoce.net
Research and Innovation Centre in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies ATHENA (ATHENA RC / IMIS), Greece
www.athena-innovation.gr
European Multimedia Forum (EMF), United Kingdom
www.e-multimedia.org
Association for Culture and Education KIBLA (ACE KIBLA), Slovenia
www.kibla.org
The European Museum Forum (TEMF), United Kingdom
www.europeanmuseumforum.info
Cultural Heritage on Line (CHOL), France
www.museum-images.com

In collaboration with MAXICULTURE
www.maxiculture.eu

eCultValue platform:
www.ecultvalue.eu
www.ecultobservatory.eu

Project eCultValue is supported by Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).