Technological Approaches to Cultural Heritage—Lessons from ROCK

Abstract

In smart cities, technology is never for its own sake, but for improving the lives of citizens. As culture is at the heart of well-being, it makes sense that technology should be employed to harness and magnify the incredible potential of local culture. This paper presents a brief survey of some tools and technologies that EUROCITIES smart cities are employing in cultural policy and practice. From crowd monitoring and neuroanalytic cameras, to platforms and videogames, cities in the ROCK project, funded under the Horizon 2020 program, are harnessing technology to improve access to and preservation of culture and cultural heritage. In smart cities, technology is never for its own sake, but for improving the lives of citizens. As culture is at the heart of well-being, it makes sense that technology should be employed to harness and magnify the incredible potential of local culture. This paper presents two ways in which European smart cities are using technology in cultural policy and practice. The first section focuses on data gathering: What technologies are cities using to gather data about cultural heritage engagement, and how are they using this data to modify their cultural policies? The second section focuses on the use of technology to create platforms for user-generated content on culture and cultural heritage: How are cities giving citizens the run of digital spaces to propose and disseminate culture and cultural heritage?