Trans-European Telecommunications Networks

MOSAIC

Museums Over States And Virtual Culture

European Union

DGXIII TEN Telecom / Cultural Heritage

Member of

Multi-media access to Europe’s Cultural Heritage

Memorandum of Understanding

Trans-European Telecommunications Networks

Mosaic introduces a new approach to organisation, maintenance and promotion in the field of art and museums. This approach is mainly based on a couple of cool interactive technologies: Hypermedia and Telecommunications and it applies to museums, art galleries, architecture and other kinds of works of art. Network access to museums and galleries offers both easier access to Europe’s heritage and new revenue for its preservation and display from access and re-use fees.

European museums and galleries hold the richest collection of objects, art and cultural wealth than anywhere in the world, but much of it is not accessible to scholars and public.

This is the reason why this ‘Real Virtuality’ aims at developing a trans-European framework for electronic network access to museums and galleries, classifying and showing not only what is shown to the public but what is not visible.

because of lack of exhibition space or, what is not accessible to the public like frescos in restricted access buildings and private offices.

The main goal of this project is to improve the visibility of cultural heritage, to disseminate knowledge and cultural interchanges amongst nations. One of the fall-out of MOSAIC may be the availability of some fees for museums coming from network usage and information downloading.

Trans-European Telecommunications Networks

MOSAIC PROJECT

The Mosaic network

   The Mosaic network articulates itself on ISDN and ATM avant-garde technology and sees its nodal points in technological partners and service managers: Rome-Infobyte, Milano-Politecnico di Milano, Bologna-CINECA (GAR and University network), ZGDV (German, Portuguese, and South American University networks), Paris-Arenotech, Austria JRC, Japan (University and private networks), USA, Canada, Egypt, etc...

   The potential centers of dissemination can depend on the distribution network of Banca di Roma which has 1200 offices open to the public. In addition (not immediately) new potential collaborators presently being defined : 320 contact centers at the overseas Italian Embassies (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), 300 000 users of the in progress  Bell ATM network and ABI (Associazione Banche Italiane = Italian Banks Association ).  

   MOSAIC is connected to the European Union MOU (Memorandum of Understanding for cultural heritage) and therefore contains a significant mailing list for sending information or for communicating and promoting events.

The research for partners is directed to:

   those who have initiatives and wish to have them valorized within the international context

   those who need a quick solution for organizing and providing services with additional value on cultural goods

   those who invest in and sponsor activities on cultural goods  

   those who have files and data banks and wish to make them retrievable, to commercialize the contents or a part of such.

MOSAIC Tools (see demo area of mosaic web)

   virtual exhibitor: this Infobyte tool will allow one to create virtual shows in real context or in virtual in order to finally create preview exhibition space in definition or for advertising new cultural initiatives being prepared or for the exposition during the execution of a cultural event. 

   the on-line browser: this tool will allow the access, within the personalized environment (netscape or explorer) for culture, in a map-like way.  The selection of more subjects (painting, sculpture,...), of the referral period (year), and of other parameters, will allow (in sensitive points) the highlighting on the cartographic map whereby the inherent information to the activised thematic research is present. A part of this browser pertains to the managing of the MOSAIC catalogue and the managing of the sales of high resolution images. At minimum the browser will be populated by all the active links with "home page" of existing museums, institutions and quite adherent to the cultural heritage. One can also think of managing ticket reservations for museum visits and eventual telematic sales. Even here a permanent thematic area forum is foreseen and a news area (national and international events to divulge within the internet context - broadcasting on the mailing list).

Trans-European Telecommunications Networks

   the MOSAIC research motor: this element is made-up of a metadatabase that updates the relative links to the information regarding the cultural heritage making it available to the research browser.

The service centers

The service centers are the vital element of the project and they constitute the point of contact distributed with the real public.  In the service centers (institutions, galleries, museums, libraries, etc.) at one's disposition. There will be the primary elements for access to the MOSAIC context ( virtual visual room, cybercafè, videoconference, scientific commissions, curators of the cultural heritage,...).

The following centers are being defined:

   The French Service Center

   The Austrian Service Center

   The Italian Service Center

MOSAIC applications

   virtual university (the first presently active virtual university specializing in education and culture on an experimental level)

   virtual museum (is the first one pertaining to archaeology)

THE PRODUCTS AND DATABANKS:

   museums and information linked (Milan, Rome and AIACE)

   Austria (a precise list is being defined)

   Germany (a precise list is tbd)

   France (a precise list is being defined regarding the Ministry of Culture)

   Japan (a precise list is being defined)

MOSAIC CATALOGUE:

   titles and VR applications (to be detailed and defined)

NET VIRTUAL MUSEUM PROJECT - MOSAIC

Too often one focuses on standards and technological potentials of infrastructures, but rarely does one operate to understand what is desired and what is expected from these tools, from their titles and from their services pertaining to the cultural heritage. This is why MOSAIC does not wish to limit itself by imposing standards, but rather it poses the problem of how one must value (with the use of technological standards) his/her daily working experience when confronted with managing  and promoting his/her cultural heritage on a daily basis.  The general theme, therefore, becomes: the quality of the contents and the way to utilize it through the help of new multimedial and virtual reality technology and not viceversa.

Trans-European Telecommunications Networks

Moreover, MOSAIC proposes creating just the right synergy between workers and the most vast possible audience of users.  In fact, the initiatives that are taken within the context of cultural patrimony are often insufficiently disseminated or insufficiently made fruitful for the vast public. On one hand, the strong desire to retrieve information is perceived, however, on the other hand, the tiles ("tesserae") or the network for making them available are not found.  The first process is therefore of a logical nature: to create a whole of tiles that are in themselves self-consistent and position them within the global context away from the States, and finally

producing a multiple mosaic with many potential point of views.  Even the smallest initiatives or those considered to be of minor value can reveal themselves to be important and successful if placed in the appropriate context. Substantially, this is the simple contribution that MOSAIC wishes to bring forth: compose  pre-existing initiatives without altering the rules of promotion, but valorizing and amplifying them through its distributed network.

All of these considerations and the complexity of the applied theme combined with the need for multilinguistic and interoperable services represent the  basic elements of the MOSAIC project.  The route chosen starts from a network of relationships between pre-existing partners within the European, Mediterranean and G7 environments which constitutes the first step of the Mosaic Project: the Human-Network.

MOSAIC - thanks to its many partners - believes it can create that synthesis on applicative themes and services that can constitute the starting point of a path on which the first steps are being taken.

Within the first year of work, the project will make available to all the partners or those joining: a solution at hand on how to predispose services with additional value in a capillary way; a set of tools specialized in the cultural field; an international network capable of disseminating the available products and rendering an ensemble of commercial agreements economically advantageous for whoever presently has at hand any qualified cultural heritage information.

MOSAIC'S success is measured by the capacity of catalyzing new partners and by offering  distributed services to a vast amount of users.  The road taken is still winding and not easy , however, the objective is very clear: to converge the cultural patrimony on the global highway of information, rather, to allow the cultural heritage to drive on the right-hand lane which is easily retrievable from the largest number of users possible.