30 October – 3 November 2017 | Nicosia, Cyprus

DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVES

Objective of the Training Event is to discuss about and develop digital interfaces and interactive narratives, which will contribute to the exploitation of heritage in Mediterranean cities for the reactivation of neglected urban green spaces through playful engagement, gamification, and storytelling. Heritage can be used to influence positively the social cohesion of neighbourhoods as it could be promoted in such a way that, instead of provoking tensions and division, would offer spaces of inclusion, interesting everyday experiences and provide a sense of belonging to socially excluded communities. The Training Event will study the capacity of ICT for learning and social interaction opportunities in territories of heritage (heritagescapes) that now extend to include urban squares and parks. Overarching goal of this effort is to promote these open air spaces in becoming part of the everyday life of a city, i.e., part of the network of its communal amenities and common resources, in order to contribute to the well-being and quality of life of citizens.

AREAS OF INTEREST

• Heritage as driver for urban regeneration and resilience in Mediterranean cities
• Participation, co-creation and co-management of built heritage and historic sites
• Civic interaction in and the design of public spaces
• ICT, interactive storytelling, play and digital art in public space
• New urban sites / integration of forgotten sites in the everyday of the city
• Hybrid heritage-scapes as public space

EXPECTED OUTPUTS

During the workshop trainees will learn about the Mediterranean city and will be occupied with the repurposing of the moat of the medieval fortification of the historic city of Nicosia from being used as parking space, and other fragmentary private uses, into a public space that highlights the only shared heritage that unites the two sides of the divided city, that is, its Medieval Walls.

In particular we envision the following outputs:

• Interaction design concepts, Graphic User Interface mock ups and prototypes for an Augmented Reality feature of the TOOL WAY CyberParks (cyberparks-project.eu/app/monitoring-tool), piloting the urban park of the moat and the history of the Medieval Walls, in order to contribute to CyberParks objective for research about the opportunities of ICT usage in public spaces;
• Unique opportunity of applying CyberParks concepts to contested heritage-scape of the last divided capital in Europe, considering the cultural function of public spaces; and,
• Visual content for the mobile app (e.g., collages, photographs, diagrams, videos) and scenarios of interaction according to historical narratives and the contemporary life of the site, in order to acquire empirical knowledge of the impact of ICT on public spaces and to foster collaboration among experts from creative practices, humanities and historians, as well as city stakeholder.

VENUE

The Cyprus Institute
20 Konstantinou Kavafi Street. Aglantzia
2121 Nicosia Cyprus

KEY DATES – SUBMISSIONS

20/06/2017 – Opening the submission period for participants
20/08/2017 – Deadline for applications for participants
05/09/2017 – Results of the evaluation process

PARTICIPANTS

The training event is designed as CPD (Continuing Professional Development) and the targeted participants are young practitioners and academics (max 35 years old) from different fields tackling the nexus of people -places and technology, as architecture, urban design and planning, landscape architecture, urban and cultural management, urban sociology and anthropology, conflict resolution, computational science-related professions, computer gaming developers and creative industries, etc. They can be students and young graduates, as well as PhD Students and Early Stage Career researchers working in related fields. This list is not exhaustive, the training school is open to a wide range of backgrounds – just inspire the jury to select you!

The participants’ groups will be formed with an interdisciplinary scope, i.e., participants with a design-oriented background will be encouraged to collaborate with computer scientists. We aim to form 4 groups of 5 participants involving 2 designers, 2 programmers and 1 from humanities in each group.

The Training School Hybrid Heritagescapes as Urban Commons in Mediterranean Cities will be open to a maximum of 20 participants.

REIMBURSEMENT & GRANTS

The confirmed applicants from COST countries will be granted for accommodation, daily meals and travel expenses the maximum flat rate grant defined by both TU1306 Project and the Organizing Committee. The maximum reimbursement amount for coming to Nicosia is organized according to the following scheme:

• For participants from Cyprus: 100€
• For participants from other COST countries 900€

The list of COST countries is available here.

APPLICATION AND REQUESTED MATERIAL FOR SELECTION

Submission is open to the imagination of the individual and it can be of any form of visual material, including:

1. Motivation Letter – provide a short statement (max 500 words) why the commission should select you to participate in the Training School.
2. Short Curriculum vitae
3. Design portfolio (max. 10 pages A3 in pdf format);
4. Moving-image essay (5-minute long moving image sequence in any digital animation format to be submitted to website;); film (4-minute long movie uploaded to the website); online virtual environment (provide the URL); mobile app (provide the URL); video game (provide the URL). All submitted material should offer the information needed to understand your skills, approaches, and experiences.

1) Organization committee:

• Georgios Artopoulos (head of committee)
• Nikolas Bakirtzis
• TBA

2) Tutors:

• Georgios Artopoulos (head of committee)
• Nikolas Bakirtzis
• TBA

Contributions from:

• Loukas Kalisperis, Professor of PennState Stuckeman School of Architecture
• Agni Petridou, Chief Engineer, Municipality of Nicosia
• Glafkos Konstantinides, Urban Planning Consultant
• Yiorgos Chrysanthou, Associate Professor, Dept. of Computer Sciences, University of Cyprus
• Colter Wehmeier, Advanced Visualisation Lab, National Centre for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Panayiotis Charalambous, PhD, Computer Scientist, CASTORC, CyI
• Panayiotis Kyriacou, Augmented Reality applications, STARC, CyI
• More to be announced soon…

TRAINING SCHOOL PROGRAM

(the final programme will be provided in due time to the selected participants)

Day 1 (30 October):

• 9.00: Welcome
  Introduction to Cyberparks and theme of the Training School
  Introduction to the site
• 10.30: Coffee break
  Discursive formations I (theoretical considerations)
• 13.00: Lunch break
  Discursive formations II:
  Interdisciplinary groups formation
• 16.00: Coffee break
  Brainstorming session – questions formation
• 19:00 End day 1
• 19.30: Dinner

Day 2 (31 October):

• 9.00: Site visit
• 13.00: Lunch break
  Brainstorming session – site analysis
• 16.30: Coffee break
  Available software; presentation of technological capacities to be considered in proposals
• 19:00 End day 2
• 19.30: Dinner

Day 3 (1 November):

• 9.00: Working session – concept development
• 11.00: Coffee break
  Tutorials
• 13.00: Lunch break
  Working session
• 16.30: Coffee break
  Concept presentation
• 19:00 End day 3
• 19.30: Dinner

Day 4 (2 November):

• 9.00: Working session
• 11.00: Coffee break
  Tutorials
• 13.00: Lunch break
• Working session
  19:00 End day 4

Day 5 (3 November):

• 9.00: Presentation of proposals
  Testing on site
• 13.00: Lunch break
  Open discussion
• 16.30: Coffee break
  Closing remarks and new beginnings
• 17:00 Farewell

Applications here: cyberparks-project.eu