Over two days, small teams will meet in five co-creation sessions to develop and prototype ideas.

Anyone interested in cultural heritage and/or immersive technologies, no special skills are required.

During the hackathon, participants will have the opportunity to use cultural heritage data sets to develop use cases in multidisciplinary teams. XR Studio Sessions offer all teams an introduction to our approach to XR (using the term “extended reality” to include augmented, virtual, and mixed reality approaches) as well as the Motion Hub, the studio K8 has designed for immersive experience research and development. Use case development will be supported by K8’s methodology for immersive experience design, a simple framework to structure complete XR workflows.

The February hackathon is anchored in the Impulse project. Involving members of the Impulse research project as well as research partners from related European research projects, it offers an opportunity for practice-based research and prototyping.

All of these projects engage with the shifting frameworks that affect cultural heritage work. These frameworks include technical conditions such as artificial intelligence and XR technology stacks, regulatory aspects like access to open data and a wide range of open technologies, and conceptual or philosophical perspectives regarding the meaning of openness and immersive experience.

When we design immersive experiences, what we can do is framed by a broad range of factors. As we try to “think inside the box” of immersive experience, these factors change our work – and possibly rewrite existing rules of the game as they transform the XR ecosystem.

As AI challenges established practices of open data sharing, open and low cost digital assets are becoming increasingly available; open source software facilitates analysis of textures for physically-based rendering (PBR); image generators now create professional-grade seamless tiles; and worldmaking has become the development trajectory of AI-based image generation more generally (Midjourney will lead to interactive spaces, Marble already explores it, SIMA 2 populates it with agents).

While open data was once considered inherently beneficial as a technical advancement, the conversation has now shifted. The central concern is who can actually make use of open data, and with what capacities. Large AI providers dominate this landscape, effectively undermining the original public value orientation of open data by being the only actors capable of monetizing these resources. As a result, creative practitioners and cultural heritage stakeholders are excluded from new data-driven value creation processes. As a consequence, more assets are made available.

Through work on XR use case development, the hackathon builds on and expands a research conversation that continues to explore a series of shared concerns:

1. What might the future of open data culture look like, given the increasing capabilities of open source software and the simultaneous challenge posed to open data philosophies by AI?

2. How can we redesign the way we create value in response to new technical conditions?

3. How do we address the need for professionalization and education on XR to better be able to “think inside the box” of immersive experience, integrating technical competencies and a deeper understanding of data-driven value processes ?

KU Leuven Libraries holds important documentary heritage collections and is keen on providing worldwide access to its collections for use in education, research and for general outreach.

Origin, significance, and context of the data set

• The dataset consists of various subcollectios held by our Special Collections department. A small selection is made based on the theme „body“ and „Navigation“. The data is in the public domain, ready to be (re)used in any context. It also holds scans from an annotated version of the Fabrica by Vesalius himself. The Fabrica is the most important publication in history on the anatomy of the human body, published originally in 1543.

Scope and structure of the data set (size, formats)

• The data are 2D scans from publications, the file format is jpg, the images have been resized for optimal viewing experience within the virtual environment. In the metadata a link to the original hight-quality data source can be found.

How and where is the data provided? How can it be used?

• The data is open data and in the public domain. The data can be (re)used without limitations

desired use/your challenge idea

• How do you present 2D data in a 3D environment
• How can specific university collections, such as KU Leuven Libraries, be part of the larger European framework

Presentation video:

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Jagiellonian University is the oldest university in Poland. Given the university’s long history (over 660 years), its heritage is rich and diverse. 

Origin, significance, and context of the data set

• The dataset originates from academic initiatives aimed at documenting and researching university collections and heritage. Its significance lies in bringing together previously dispersed information, enabling research, preservation activities, and broader access to academic heritage.

Scope and structure of the data set (size, formats)

• It comprises descriptive metadata and selected digitized materials organized by institution and theme, provided in standard formats such as CSV, XML/JSON, and common image files.

How and where is the data provided? How can it be used?

• The data is made available through an institutional repository or dedicated digital platform and can be reused for research, teaching, and digital humanities projects in accordance with the applicable license.

desired use/your challenge idea

• It is intended to support comparative studies of academic heritage and to foster educational and interpretative uses.

Presentation video:

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reading material: PDF – Download

Presentation video:

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accessible on the website https://codingdavinci.de/de/daten?event%5B0%5D=1770

Between 2014 and 2022, the culture hackathon Coding da Vinci has brought together the cultural sector with creative technology communities to explore the creative potential of digital cultural heritage. Over a several-week sprint phase hackathon teams, together with representatives of cultural institutions, develop working prototypes –for example apps, websites, data visualisations, games or interactive installations– that show surprising and inspiring new ways to communicate and make use of institutions‘ collections and artifacts in the digital age.

In 2020, Coding da Vinci came to greater region of Saar-Lor-Lux and showed once more, how many surprising opportunities lie in open cultural data. Here, in the heart of Europe, Coding da Vinci not only crossed boundaries between the cultural and the tech world but also across national borders. Nine projects in 2020 emerged on the basis of open cultural data.

The data sets provided by museums, archives, libraries, and cultural institutions for Coding da Vinci SaarLorLux are still available. As part of the IMPULSE pre-hackathon, we want to explore what else can be done with them.

Coding da Vinci Saar-Lor-Lux 2020

OWNER: Monika Krakowska

This challenge includes three micro-challenges to design inclusive, meaningful VR experiences. Teams will create accessible onboarding flows for early user success, build compact three-layer narratives around selected objects, and prototype alternative “hidden story” paths that invite new interpretations. Expected outcomes include improved onboarding, refined storytelling, and innovative perspectives for future development.

OWNER: Luka Princic

The challenge is to craft the dramaturgy of a performative event at the Ġgantija temple – translating its cultural and historical meaning into lived experience. This involves shaping narrative, emotion, and sensory design through choices of story, technology, and atmosphere. Possible outcomes include a cohesive mixed-reality experience where participants actively engage with heritage, connecting place, story, and feeling in an immersive, emotionally resonant way.

OWNERS: Margarita Pulé | Afroditi Andreou

This modular hackathon challenge invites participants to explore digital storytelling and playful design as ways to question dominant narratives and invite multiple interpretations of heritage. Each micro-challenge can stand alone or combine practical and theoretical elements. Themes range from speculative curation and digital fragility to intimacy, care, and reinterpretation of artefacts. Possible outcomes include experimental prototypes, reflective games, and immersive experiences that reshape how audiences engage with cultural heritage.

OWNERS: Mert Akbal | Sónia Alves

In many cultural heritage contexts, the design of immersive experience will involve some combination of existing and future skills. To better connect and integrate the design and learning processes, the challenge combines XR use case development and learning journey design. The challenge draws on approaches from the HAMLET project (including the Generative Arts and Design Lab, a future skills format developed by the HBKsaar’s Experimenta Media Lab) and the CYANOTYPES project and focuses on XR and (generative) AI as skill domains. Possible outcomes include use cases and custom learning journeys designed to address the needs of learners involved in implementing the concrete use cases co-created by the team.

OWNERS: Henrik Elburn | Jan Tretschok

Ideally, studio infrastructures are designed to address existing needs – and offer enough flexibility for future uses. Framed by the current tech stack of the Motion Hub, the challenge involves the creation of a series of use cases that can serve as a roadmap to inform future studio design. Possible outcomes include scenarios that focus on new data sets, new technological infrastructures, or new user groups.

OWNER: Martin Gordon

Surviving Holocaust documentation long centered on Nazi state records, with early historiography marginalizing survivors’ voices until Saul Friedländer’s transformative approach. His method foregrounded individual experiences, uncovering small acts of resistance and self‑assertion absent from official archives. Through this microhistorical lens, the regional and local complexities of the Holocaust become visible. We examine the roles and fates of selected individuals in Bielsko‑Biała, Poland, within the context of the Auschwitz concentration camp laundry located in the town.

MOTION HUB, K8

Methodologically, the studio is designed to facilitate collaborative interactive / immersive real-time process / systems design prototyping. The current technology stack includes 360° projection (4 * 4K) and a markerless motion capture system and will soon offer additional features for controlling real-time, synchronized rendering across multiple computers and output devices (via Unreal’s nDisplay) as well as Gaussian Splatting.

A Methodological Pipeline for Cultural Heritage Visualisation

CX STUDIO, FILMUNIVERSITÄT BABELSBERG

 A practical methodology combining photogrammetry, AI-driven visualisation, and spatial grounding transforms digitised heritage collections from static repositories into active sources for contemporary media production. The approach is demonstrated through two complementary case studies in material and intangible cultural heritage, developed at Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF within the IMPULSE project. 

The 3-part methodological pipeline (see image below) includes Material Heritage (ROW 1: from archival documentation to 3D capture and AI-generated visualisation), Intangible Heritage (ROW 2: from geometric site capture to historically accurate narrative scenes) and the Corridor of Memories (ROW 3: transforming the 3D capture into an immersive spatial narrative).

AI’s the Thing: Immersive futures in Dance and Performance Research. A HAMLET Living Lab.

This session brings together researchers and practitioners from the HAMLET project, from computer science research institutes as well as dance and performance practice, to explore the future of immersion. Drawing on their experience with XR technologies, the participants ask how immersive practices are changing and what new forms of immersion may emerge from current artistic and technological developments.

Based on concrete projects, the session looks at how generative and interpretive AI influence space, movement, embodiment, and storytelling, and how collaboration between artists, technologists, and intelligent systems may change authorship, agency, and human relationships. Questions of dependency on AI, the personification of AI, and whether AI functions as a tool, collaborator, or competitor are central to the discussion.

Immersion is considered not only as an intensification of experience, but also as a possible space for retreat, reflection, or collective negotiation, raising questions about whether future immersive environments are primarily individual, shared, or socially shaped.

Facilitator: Mert Akbal, Generative Arts and Design Lab, HBKsaar

Joumana Mourad
Dancer, Choreographer and the Artistic Director at IJAD Dance Company

IJAD Dance Company works at the intersections of performing arts, technology and science to evolve new creative forms and innovation in the industry, while offering new insights into the human body and advancing movement techniques. This is done via multi-dimensional performances, expert discussion and community projects.

Joumana Mourad is the founder and artistic director of IJAD Dance Company, where they explore the possibilities at the intersection of performance, science, XR, MR, and AI. Their immersive work transforms conventional spaces – walls, ceilings, and floors – into dynamic stages, challenging perception and fostering collective experience.

Francesco Cutillo, rMA
Junior Researcher ICK-Academy & Producer, ICK Dans Amsterdam

The international choreographic arts center ICK Dans Amsterdam was founded in 2009 by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, who have been working together since 1995. Under their vision, ICK has developed into an institute for contemporary dance with three closely interconnected domains: ICK-Ensemble and ICK-Next, a company with its own repertoire; ICK Guest Artists, focused on talent development; ICK Academy, dedicated to research, education and transmission of dance knowledge. ICK is internationally known for its innovative approach to dance and the methodology Double Skin / Double Mind, where the body is understood as a source of physical intelligence, intuition and embodied knowledge.

Francesco trained in performing arts and philosophy in Italy, France, and the Netherlands. He joined ICK in 2023, and has since then been involved in the artistic research, technological operations, and production of projects around dance and new technologies, including the performance-installation Intuition Machine and the HorizonEU research and innovation projects PREMiERE and HAMLET.

Dr. Andreas Aristidou
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, Senior Research Fellow at CYENS Centre of Excellence

CYENS Centre of Excellence (formerly RISE) is Cyprus’s Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence focusing on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies. It aims to empower knowledge and technology transfer and to integrate academic research with industrial innovation to support scientific, technological and socio-economic growth in Cyprus and Europe. CYENS is a joint venture between the three public universities of Cyprus (University of Cyprus, Cyprus University of Technology, Open University of Cyprus), the Municipality of Nicosia, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Germany), and University College London (UK).

Dr. Andreas Aristidou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cyprus, a member of the Graphics & Extended Reality Lab, and a Senior Research Fellow at the CYENS Centre of Excellence, with research interests in computer graphics and character animation. He earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Cambridge European Trust fellow, holds an MSc (with honors) from King’s College London, and a BSc from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has previously held research fellow positions in China, Israel, and Cyprus, and has participated in multiple EU-funded projects.

Dr. Marina Stamatiadou
Journalism & Mass Communications, MEng Electrical & Computer Engineering, M3C Group, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki  (AUTH)

Dr. Nikolaos Vryzas
Journalism & Mass Communications, MEng Electrical & Computer Engineering, M3C Group, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH)

AUTH is a university in Greece and Southeastern Europe, with 10 faculties, 40 schools and 1 single-school Faculty covering all disciplines. The Multidisciplinary Media & Mediated Communication Research Group (M3C) addresses the complex interdisciplinary demands of contemporary media and mediated communication. Initiated by researchers from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and particularly the Media Informatics Lab (MIL) and the Laboratory of Electronic Media (eMedia), M3C integrates technological and social perspectives on the rapidly evolving media landscape. Its research spans new media theory and practice, media technologies, computational and data journalism, audiovisual production and broadcasting, multimedia and signal processing, machine learning, multimodal intelligent systems, and human–computer interaction. Additional focus areas include media sociology and psychology, media economics, verification and authentication of user-generated content and cultural heritage. M3C brings together a highly motivated, interdisciplinary team capable of addressing contemporary media challenges with a strong, high-dimensional research character.

Marina Eirini Stamatiadou is a post-doctoral researcher in the e-media Lab of the School of Journalism & Mass Communications. She earned her PhD from AUTH and she holds a diploma (MEng) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from AUTH. She has strong expertise in software engineering, requirements elicitation, and conceptual systems‘ design and her multidisciplinary profile bridges software, journalism, and communication studies, with a focus on the selection, evaluation, and integration of AI tools and services into digital media workflows and mobile journalism. She has extensive experience in EU R&I projects on applied AI, multimedia processing, and service-oriented architectures for media production and distribution.

Nikolaos Vryzas is a post-doctoral researcher in the e-media Lab of the School of Journalism & Mass Communications and belongs in the Laboratory Teaching Staff of the same school. He holds a diploma (MEng) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from AUTH and a MSc in Information and Communication Audio/Video Technologies for Education & Production.

www.xmlab.org/research-2024/research-reader/AIs-the-Thing-Immersive-futures-in-Dance-and-Performance-Research-A-HAMLET-Living-Lab

In this participatory lecture, Reut Shemesh offers physical, visual, and conceptual lenses into her artistic practice. She will present her work as a visual exhibition, followed by a short movement-based improvisation task, and then speak about her projects and the trajectory she forms through uniformity, clichés, gender, and dance.

Shemesh will explore the relationship between the moving body and shared “real” space, such as the theatre box, in contrast to virtual space. She will address themes central to her work, including sexuality, intimacy, and physical empathy, and will conclude by offering a warm-up designed to release the tension produced by prolonged screen use.

www.reutshemesh.com

Artists and designers have remained marginal to the European conversation on the future of the continent’s deep tech ecosystem. This needs to change – creatives need to be part of the systems design conversation.

The IMPULSE project can be directly connected to larger European frameworks, such as the ECHOES project, the European Collaborative Cultural Heritage Cloud, or the European Heritage Hub in which IMPULSE actors are already active. For this hackathon, three complementary research projects come together to illustrate different approaches to systemic challenges.

IMPULSE itself, through its software developments, aims not to compete with existing commercial platforms but provide a playful way of exploring and addressing XR design possibilities, with a particular focus on digital cultural heritage since virtual worlds offer unique possibilities for engagement.

The HAMLET project, on the other hand, emphasizes the voices of artists in shaping processes of systems design. It highlights the importance of acknowledging the unique characteristics of different artistic practices. For example, working with book collections poses entirely different challenges than handling movement data from dance and performance art. A further layer of complexity arises with media art, which requires highly specific infrastructures to be preserved and understood. As demonstrated by the archival work of the ZKM, the data itself cannot be maintained as cultural heritage unless the associated technical and infrastructural frameworks are also preserved, designed, and made accessible. Media art thus expands the concept of heritage to include the technical conditions of its operation and presentation, linking questions of culture and technological infrastructure.

CYANOTYPES explores the wide scope of skills and knowledge required across the creative sector in general, including the cultural heritage ecosystem. By using tools such as the “Blueprinter” and the “Learning Journey Design Canvas” (adopted from the T4R project), Cyanotypes aims to structure and guide the selection of learning content through AI-based agents. This approach supports the creation of individual learning pathways across different educational sites within the cultural heritage competence ecosystem. The project offers concrete strategies for building necessary competencies, both for emerging professionals in the field and for current practitioners working across various cultural heritage domains.