Prof. dr. Frederik Truyen

The EuropeanaPhotography project, with its unique partnership involving both renowned public heritage institutions and private curators and photo agencies, offers a hitherto unaccessible view on how Europe’s history has been captured through the eye of the photographer. Whether it are wedding pictures, portraits, city scapes, sports, nature or politics, colonialism and war, the manifold dimensions that have shaped todays Europe in the pivotal period of 1839-1939 are expressed in the rich collections that we are about to disclose to the general public through Europeana. Together with the history of Europe and its citizens, a story unfolds on the language of Photography through different techniques such as daguerreotype, calotype, glass negative, etc. which had an impact on how the subject was framed and rendered. In this lecture, we will focus on the importance of the digital reproduction and representation of these images for the preservation of our photographic heritage and the lessons learnt within the consortium.

Information about the speaker:

Prof. dr. Frederik Truyen is associate professor at the Faculty of Arts, Leuven University (KU Leuven). He publishes on E-Learning, ICT Education, Digital Culture and Epistemology. Head of ICT Services at the Faculty of Arts. In charge of CS Digital, the mediaLab of the Institute for Cultural Studies. He teaches Information Science at the BA and Online Publishing at the MA level. Currently chairman of the ICT council for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University. Fred Truyen is programme director of the MA in Cultural Studies. He is involved in many projects on Open Educational Resources, such as OER-HE, Net-CU and OCW EU, and on projects in digitization of Cultural Heritage, such as IDEM, RICH and EuropeanaPhotography, is a coordinator of the latter one.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”

John Balean

Shortly after the invention of photography, in 1839, press photography was born. Only a few iconic names and images have been embraced by academia but ever since the first press imagery appeared, photographic masterpieces have been published, lost, damaged, destroyed, left anonymously and often completely forgotten. Press photography has a strong sense of narrative and enables us to see how the way we remember things can be distorted or manipulated.

John Balean gives a brief introduction about the origins of Press photography and TopFoto’s involvement in EuropeanaPhotography to help preserve digitally a collection of press photographic memory for future generations.

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John Balean is a photographer and international marketing manager at picture library TopFoto. He graduated from the University of Newcastle (Australia) with a bachelor of Arts in the Visual Arts and a major in Photography. J. Balean is TopFoto coordinator for the EuropeanaPhotography project. He has given lectures and written about the picture industry and is the Consultant Researcher to the Press Photo History Project. John has been an editor of the 2008–2009 CEPIC (Coordination of European Picture Agencies Stock, Press and Heritage), from 2013 he is an elected member of the Committee of CEPIC. From 2012 he is an elected member of the Executive Committee of BAPLA (British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies). When time allows he creates daguerreotypes, the earliest form of photography, using a vintage Gandolfi 5×7 plate camera.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”

Anna Grusková

Theatre is a social phenomenon that especially from the second half of the 19th century till (at least) the outbreak of the WWI touched all layers of European society. Even newspapers often informed about theatre events on front pages. To make amateur theatre was one of the most popular way how to spend leisure time. Social life and its urban celebrations, manifestations, parades etc. had a strong theatrical character – fixed scenario, set design, costumes, “actors” and auditorium etc. Theatrical features could be easily recognized in rural celebrations, like folklore ceremonies and rites. We could say that theatre was deeply rooted in everyday life. How is it reflected in photography at that time?

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Anna Grusková is the Czech-Slovak theatre scientist, theatre, film and radio author and director. She was graduated from Theatre and Film Studies at Charles University in Prague. She initiated and led many domestic and international projects with both artistic and social dimension (America, Brides / Brides, Sarcophagi and ATMs), on others she participated as an author (Donaudrama, Chance ’89). Her drama Rabbi Woman about the fate of the Bratislava Jewish activist Gisi Fleischmann was staged in Slovak National Theatre and the Theatre Reon in Bologna. Among others, she also directed theatre and film installation Danube Drama or Filthy coffee, cheap cigarettes, documentary film Rabbi Woman etc. She is employed by the Divadelný ústav under the Theatre Institute, lives in Bratislava and enjoys cycling.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”

Antonella Fresa

In recent years Europeana and other digital cultural resources and collections have received large-scale investment from the European Commission and Member States – and some private investment as well – and it is now necessary to move to the exploitation phase.

The return on this investment, which has mostly taken the shape of public funding initiatives, needs to be assessed against the impact delivered to society in terms both of the use of Europeana by the general public, and in terms of its use by economic actors – most particularly the creative industries.

The potential impact of Europeana’s digital cultural assets has not yet been fully realised and needs stronger instruments to support its delivery.

The main issues:

– Increasing the exploitation of the digital cultural content generated through the digitisation campaigns;

– The metadata services are key elements for the content and the Creative Industry; and the new CC0 licences for Europeana content open new opportunities;

– The public domain, which is a tremendously rich resource and offers a great deal of value for society at large, is currently underexploited and there a number of barriers to re-use of this material.

The lecture aims to explore these issues, discuss specific characteristics of Creative Industries sector and propose elements of best practice.

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Antonella Fresa is ICT expert, General Manager and Administrator of Promoter, ICT research and innovation company established in Pisa (Italy). She has graduated in Computer Science at the University of Turin. Antonella has been working as a system engineer, manager, researcher, policy advisor for the High Technology Network and free-lance consultant for major ICT and online services. Between 1999 and 2002 she was a Project Officer at the European Commission, between 2002 and 2012 – an advisor of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. She has more than 15 years of work experience in European cooperation projects and policy development frameworks. She’s currently Technical Coordinator of EC projects of digital content: DCH-RP, EuropeanaPhotography, Linked Heritage, DC-NET ERA-NET, MINERVA series and MICHAEL series. Antonella has been a member of various ICT, cultural heritages organisations and committees. In her free time she enjoys being at countryside and riding a horse.

International conference “Digitisation and photographic memory”