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VBP, the Virtual Baptistery of Pisa, is a virtual reality prototype for cultural heritage presentation and communication. It combines education and entertainment methods to create a playful even though correct way to deliver artistic and cultural information. The virtual reality provides added values to the public with respect to the traditional media, as it lets group multimedia contents from various sources in a unique virtual environment. The visitor can see situations that he cannot see in a real visit - a reference to another monument, a cross section, architectural details that are too high up- and also situations that attract his attention and curiosity -lighting and acoustic effects, meet remotely connected visitors, ask questions to synthetic guides-. VBP presents a scenographic representation of the Baptistery of Pisa for interactive and distributed exploration. VBP contains the concepts of non linear intersecting storylines based on storytelling methods and techniques that can fits various levels of users. In addition it is a general framework for developing new stories, and for changing and adapting the ones already created. VBP requires an immersive stereo visualization system equipped with adequate audio and interaction devices. When the proper VR hardware is not available, it can run on the PC screen as well, though one looses immersion characteristics. The beta version has been released in 2003 while the final version has been planned at half 2005.

This paper documents the results of an intensive "data sprint" method for undertaking data and algorithmic work using application programming interfaces (APIs), which took place during the Digital Method Initiative 2013 Winter School at the University of Amsterdam. During this data sprint, we developed a method to map the fields of Digital Humanities and Electronic Literature based on title recommendations from the largest online bookseller, Amazon, by retrieving similar purchased items from the Amazon API. A first step shows the overall Amazon recommendation network for Digital Humanities and allows us to detect clusters, aligned fields and bridging books. In a second step we looked into four country-specific Amazon stores (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr and Amazon.de) to investigate the specificities of the Digital Humanities in these four countries. The third step is a network of all books suggested for the Electronic Literature field in the four Amazon stores we searched, which offers a comparison to the field of Digital Humanities.

EPOCH (http://www.epoch-net.org/index.php) is a network of about a hundred European cultural institutions joining their efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of the use of Information and Communication Technology for Cultural Heritage. Participants include university departments, research centres, heritage institutions, such as museums or national heritage agencies, and commercial enterprises, together endeavouring to overcome the fragmentation of current research in this field.

This thesis interprets the role the rock art at CA-MRP-402 played in the cultural landscape for the people who created the images. Located in Mariposa County, California, this site exhibits 103 rock art panels. By combining formal landscape methods, ritual theory, ethnography, field research, and excavation, this thesis explores the activities that took place at CA-MRP-402, how this site fits into the broader cultural landscape, and why the cultural landscape of this site attracted people to mark this place. These efforts reveal that ancient Native Americans intentionally altered the landscape of CA-MRP-402 to create an astronomical observation area and generate consistent equinoctial solar and shadow alignments. This area may have afforded a type of calendar that allowed shaman astronomers to know when it was time to perform necessary rituals. Most of the rock art at CA-MRP-402 was likely created by shaman astronomers as part of their ritual interactions with the celestial beings. This study also serves to validate this multifaceted contextual approach.

Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) are increasingly more reliant on information and communication technologies and affected by a society shaped by the Internet and Social Media. The richness and quantity of information available from open sources, if properly gathered and processed, can provide valuable intelligence and help drawing inference from existing closed source intelligence. This paper presents CAPER, a state-of-the-art platform for the prevention of organised crime, created in cooperation with European LEAs. CAPER supports information sharing and multi-modal analysis of open and closed information sources, mainly based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Visual Analytics (VA) technologies.

THE SCIENCE CLUSTERS are EU collaborative projects that were launched in 2019 to link ESFRI and other world-class Research Infrastructures (RIs) to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The main impacts of the Science Clusters’ work programme concern: the improved access of researchers to data, tools and resources, leading to new insights and innovation for data-driven science both within and beyond the context of the domains in which the clusters are rooted; the creation of a cross-border open innovation environment for FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data management for economies of scale, to develop synergies and rise the efficiency and productivity of researchers through open-science standards and thematic services; the enhanced co-developments to foster the cross-domain interoperability central to the EOSC goal. The Science Clusters are an integral part of EOSC. Their services and outcomes are now forming the core of the emerging EOSC fabric. As important partners of EOSC, Science Clusters contribute to its development and its implementation process. Importantly, the Science Clusters form a natural collaboration between the ESFRI RIs’ management boards partners in the clusters. As EOSC matures and begins delivering data and services for European research, a discussion is needed to stimulate the Open Science practices, cross-domain interoperability and long-term coordination of the scientific communities covered by the five Science Clusters. This position paper contributes formally to explain the urgent need of EC to support a longer-term role of the five Science Clusters to provide content to the EOSC, to enhance researchers’ involvement in Open Science and to suggest potential cooperative pathways in the Horizon-Europe framework and along with the EOSC Association roadmap. This paper is aimed at highlighting: Expectations of the clusters and the concerned research communities, pointing out a common structured vision and a series of suggestions for the future. A more detailed analysis from each cluster, that is provided for completeness.

Hallucinations are believed to be as old as the human’s brain. Usually, modern people relate to hallucinations in drugs or mental illness. Modern man may not think how great impact hallucinations have had on arts, religions, and folklore. The purpose of this thesis was to study how hallucinations have impacted art. This study also includes an AR installation which is based on this written part of the thesis. The data for this thesis was found from various sources such as literature, journals and researches. Art history and modern art pioneers’ work such as Wassily Kandinsky, Yves Klein and Hilma Af Klint were considered. The study also deals with hallucination studies in the 50s, cave art, and religion as a part of art. The latest research have demonstrated that hallucinations are more common than we have been suggested. Although hallucinations are still a mystery for scientists, the mechanism of hallucinations is known. Studies of hallucinations in modern art lead inevitably to artists interest in esoteric and occultism. Studies indicate that the arts role as the creator of modern spiritualism is big. Theologian Christopher Partridge has created the term “occulture” to describe this late modern era. According to Partridge, there is a process underway that traditional religions have to make room for more spiritual culture. Nowadays artists’ interest in esoteric thinking has a great impact on further, it can be found everywhere from our popular culture, and it can be seen globally. However, not all artists necessarily relate their works with esotericism, but the subconscious can also be studied from the perspective of neuroscience. Developing VR, AR, MR, and IA technology gives new tools to explore the subconscious through art.

With this White Paper, which gathers contributions from more than 25 experts of 3D imaging, modellng and processing, as well as professionals concerned with the interoperability and sustainability of research data, the PARTHENOS project aims at laying the foundations of a comprehensive environment centered on the researchers' practices concerning 3D digital objects. The topics addressed in the document are meant to help to ensure the development of standardized good practices relating to the production, the handling, the long-term conservation and the reuse of 3D objects. Therefore, even if the focus is put on technical questions (formats, processing, and annotation), the White Paper also identifies the need to clarify the legal status of 3D objects, in order to facilitate their reuse(s) in non-research contexts, in particular in Museums.

The paper presents a novel adaptive parametric documentation, modelling and sharing methodology, which aims to achieve a continuous holistic documentation, data processing and sharing process for cultural heritage community, such as architects, engineers, archaeologists, conservators, programmers, fabricators, contest creators, game developers, scholars and common citizens. Thus, the use of advance parametric and building information modelling software allows the processing and specification of all data by creating the 3D models needed for the multidisciplinary experts. Two Cypriot case studies from the medieval time period have been chosen for the development, and evaluation of our proposed methodology in order to investigate the process of modelling and sharing all the given metadata and 3D data. The first one is the Asinou Church, a UNESCO Heritage stone monument in the Troodos Mountains with a unique interior and the Kolossi Castle, a former Crusader stronghold on the west of the city of Limassol on the island of Cyprus.