Join us for a two-day pre-hackathon organized by our partner K8 Institut für strategische Ästhetik, either online or in Saarbruecken (DE), to explore new ways of creating immersive experiences of Europe’s Digital Cultural Heritage and to have the opportunity to co-develop concrete use cases.
When
February 10-11th. Over two days, small teams will meet in five co-creation sessions to develop and prototype ideas.
Who
The event is open to anyone interested in cultural heritage and/or immersive technologies, no special skills are required.
Where
CoHub | Neumarkt 15, 66117 Saarbruecken | Germany
OR
Online, via IMPULSE Community of Practice on Discord
What
During the hackathon, participants will have the opportunity to use cultural heritage data sets to develop use cases in multidisciplinary teams. XR Studio Sessions offer all teams an introduction to our approach to XR (using the term “extended reality” to include augmented, virtual, and mixed reality approaches) as well as the Motion Hub, the studio K8 has designed for immersive experience research and development. Use case development will be supported by K8’s methodology for immersive experience design, a simple framework to structure complete XR workflows.
Why
The February hackathon is anchored in the IMPULSE project. Involving members of the IMPULSE research project as well as research partners from related European research projects, it offers an opportunity for practice-based research and prototyping.
All of these projects engage with the shifting frameworks that affect cultural heritage work. These frameworks include technical conditions such as artificial intelligence and XR technology stacks, regulatory aspects like access to open data and a wide range of open technologies, and conceptual or philosophical perspectives regarding the meaning of openness and immersive experience.
When we design immersive experiences, what we can do is framed by a broad range of factors. As we try to “think inside the box” of immersive experience, these factors change our work – and possibly rewrite existing rules of the game as they transform the XR ecosystem.
As AI challenges established practices of open data sharing, open and low cost digital assets are becoming increasingly available; open source software facilitates analysis of textures for physically-based rendering (PBR); image generators now create professional-grade seamless tiles; and worldmaking has become the development trajectory of AI-based image generation more generally (Midjourney will lead to interactive spaces, Marble already explores it, SIMA 2 populates it with agents).
While open data was once considered inherently beneficial as a technical advancement, the conversation has now shifted. The central concern is who can actually make use of open data, and with what capacities. Large AI providers dominate this landscape, effectively undermining the original public value orientation of open data by being the only actors capable of monetizing these resources. As a result, creative practitioners and cultural heritage stakeholders are excluded from new data-driven value creation processes. As a consequence, more assets are made available.
Through work on XR use case development, the hackathon builds on and expands a research conversation that continues to explore a series of shared concerns:
1. What might the future of open data culture look like, given the increasing capabilities of open source software and the simultaneous challenge posed to open data philosophies by AI?
2. How can we redesign the way we create value in response to new technical conditions?
3. How do we address the need for professionalization and education on XR to better be able to “think inside the box” of immersive experience, integrating technical competencies and a deeper understanding of data-driven value processes ?
More information and registration here.
Download full schedule here.
The event is organized in collaboration with the HAMLET project and the CYANOTYPES project.
