EWRI Friends Visit London Water & Steam Museum and Union Chain Bridge-IHCEL

We strongly recommend EWRI members visit the London Water & Steam Museum. This presentation includes many slides of this outstanding museum near the Kew tube station. London Museum of Water & Steam features artefacts and interactive exhibits on water. On October 26, 2018, David Gilbert and Jerry Rogers toured the London Museum of Water & Steam, located at Green Dragon Lane, Brentford, London, TW8 0EN near Kew station. Kew Bridge Pumping Station was originally opened in 1838 by the Grand Junction Waterworks Company. In 1999, the United Kingdom government's Department for Culture, Media, and Sport described Kew Bridge Pumping Station as "the most important historic site of the water supply industry in Britain." The heart of the museum showcases a majestic collection of steam pumping engines, including engines from Corynwall, as well as rotative engines. There are many excellent London water supply and treatment exhibits also. Due to COVID-19, the planned International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark plaque ceremony of July 26, 2020, for the 200-year-old Union Chain Suspension Bridge at Berwick-upon-Tweed was cancelled. Note the book: Samuel Brown and Union Chain Bridge: Gordon Miller, Friends of the Union Bridge, 306 pp, 135 photographs, 15.5 GBP. A tour of the Paxton Estate (Paxton Trust), a historic house at Paxton, Berwickshire, was planned to be a part of the plaque ceremony. There is discussion of having a modified plaque ceremony in the spring of 2023 (specific date to be determined) possibly before the May 2023 EWRI Congress in Henderson, Nevada. © World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2023.All rights reserved

Direito à moradia: as ações do Museu das Remoções durante a pandemia

A luta pelo direito à moradia no Brasil continuou existindo durante a pandemia de Covid-19 e precisou adotar novas estratégias diante das restrições sanitárias. Este artigo aborda as reivindicações do movimento do Museu das Remoções e sua atuação em defesa do direito à moradia. A pesquisa baseia-se em dados qualitativos da transcrição de debates realizados em 2020 e 2021 pelo Museu das Remoções com outros movimentos sociais na Internet. Os resultados revelam que os principais desafios enfrentados por movimentos sociais durante a pandemia foram a insuficiência do Estado brasileiro em assegurar o direito à moradia com dignidade nas cidades e a contínua violência nos despejos e nas remoções ocorridos mesmo diante das restrições sanitárias. A pesquisa mostra que a disputa por territórios nos centros urbanos atende fundamentalmente aos interesses do capitalismo imobiliário, capaz de inviabilizar inclusive o cumprimento de medidas sanitárias em saúde pública em meio a uma pandemia com elevada letalidade.Alternate :The struggle for the right to housing in Brazil continued to exist during the Covid-19 pandemic and had to adopt new strategies in the face of health restrictions. This article addresses the demands of the Museum of Removals movement and its performance in defense of the right to housing. The research is based on qualitative data from the transcript of debates held in 2020 and 2021 by the Removals Museum with other social movements on the internet. The results reveal that the main challenges faced by social movements during the pandemic were the failure of the Brazilian State to ensure the right to housing with dignity in cities and the continuous violence in evictions and removals that occurred even in the face of health restrictions. The research shows that the dispute over territories in urban centers fundamentally serves the interests of real estate capitalism, capable of even making it impossible to comply with sanitary measures in public health in the midst of a pandemic with high lethality.

The interest in online museum experiences and the influence of uncertainty and sentiment factors on tourist arrivals: The case of EU Mediterranean countries

This study examines the determinants of tourist arrivals at hotels and short-stay accommodations for nine EU countries from January 2010 to March 2022. We identify four driving channels of foreign and domestic tourism flows: a traditional, a sentiment, a technological and a health channel. The latter comprises two novel variables: the museum search interest and the infectious disease equity market volatility tracker. The results reveal that traditional and new drivers related to market sentiments and interest in online tourism experiences affect arrivals. Notably, there is a substitution effect between online and in-presence tourism, and the larger the uncertainty, the more substantial the reduction in tourist arrivals. COVID-19 has affected especially Spain and Italy and more foreign than domestic tourists. © 2023 The Authors

Listening Whom, Listening What: Investigating Museum Audio Guides in Translation

This article addresses the role of language and quality translation in museum communication. The production of texts in museums is increasingly demanding as institutions are asked to rethink audience-oriented actions in co-design and diversity. This study is based on data provided by audio guides made available online to engage the public and provide free educational materials, something especially relevant in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis indicates that quality materials are crucial in understanding the exhibits and that accessibility may profit from multilingualism. We argue that tailoring texts can improve translation quality and provide more stimulating materials to diverse audiences.

Conducting Remote Design Research on Embodied, Collaborative Museum Exhibits

Research activities in interaction design and HCI were widely altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, with many studies shifting online as health concerns inhibited in-person research. Tangible and collaborative activities are often used in informal learning spaces and child-computer interaction, but they are neither designed for nor easily adapted to online formats. In this case study, I present findings and reflections on my experience adapting an in-situ study of embodied, collaborative museum exhibits to a remote user study during COVID-19. I identify several considerations and notes of inspiration for researchers working on similar projects, which I hope can aid in furthering iterative design research on embodied and/or collaborative activities both during the ongoing pandemic and in other current and future contexts that require remote research or interactions. The reflections I present in this case study additionally play a role in documenting the ongoing history of interaction design as researchers adapt to the rapidly changing global circumstances caused by COVID-19. © 2023 Owner/Author.

Interactive Communication Robot Handling Crowd Management and Content Delivery in Museums Employing Crowd Counting

Through the last decade, and particularly after the Covid period (2020 - 2022), crowd counting and localization have attracted much attention of AI researchers due to its potential applicability in crowd monitoring and control, public safety, space design, interactive content delivery etc. Once delivery objectives for a system are envisaged and the premises are fixed, we can always construct manifold technology architecture that delivers the set goals. However, in the Indian context a solution of choice needs to be optimized on frugality and ease of adaptability. In this paper we report an economic and replicable application of crowd counting and interactive content delivery in museums through unbiased knowledge systems embedded in robotic museum assistants. We intend to demonstrate a robotic system that can deliver any gallery content to groups of visitors keeping special focus on the exhibits that are popular choices. Crowd counting is used here to enable the content presentation to a group of choice in an interactive way. There are some market-ready solutions available for interactive gallery demonstration by moveable robots but they require not only huge capital investment but are also of limited use within controlled environments. Our proposed design is to multiplex an existing infrastructure of surveillance system as a smart crowd counting and gallery demonstration system along with crowd management with minimum additional hardware infusion. © 2023 IEEE.

The Open Air Museum and its activities during the COVID-19 Pandemic (on the selected example of Łęczyca Farmstead in Kwiatkówek)

Niniejsze opracowanie jest próbą prezentacji wpływu pandemii koronawirusa SARS-CoV-2 i wynikających z jej rozwoju ograniczeń na działalność Łęczyckiej Zagrody Chłopskiej w Kwiatkówku. Placówka ta stanowi muzeum na wolnym powietrzu typu parkowego i jest częścią Muzeum Archeologicznego i Etnograficznego w Łodzi. Została ona udostępniona dla zwiedzających w 2013 r. W ramach opracowania starano się zaprezentować nowe kierunki działalności placówki podejmowane w przestrzeni wirtualnej, jak również te, które stanowiły kontynuację dotychczasowych działań związanych z organizacją tradycyjnych wystaw czasowych, wydarzeń plenerowych i promocyjnych. Niniejszej prezentacji dokonano na podstawie działań podjętych w latach 2020-2021. Prezentując nowe kierunki działalności Łęczyckiej Zagrody Chłopskiej wskazano na wirtualne wystawy czasowe i publikowane on-line materiały o charakterze etnograficznym dotyczące np. świąt, obrzędów czy problematyki regionalnej. W ramach opracowania starano się również zaprezentować fluktuację frekwencji osób zwiedzających skansen w omawianym przedziale czasu w porównaniu z latami 2013-2019.Alternate :This study is an attempt to present the impact of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions resulting from its development on the activity of Łęczyca Farmstead in Kwiatkówek. This facility is an open air museum/theme park and is part of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź. It was made available to visitors in 2013. As part of the study, efforts were made to present new directions of the museum's activities shifted into the virtual space, as well as those that are a continuation of the previous activities related to the organization of traditional temporary exhibitions, outdoor activities and promotional events. This presentation is based on the activities undertaken in 2020-2021. While presenting the new directions of activities of Łęczyca Farmstead, particular attention was drawn to the virtual, temporary exhibitions and ethnographic materials published online, concerning e.g. some holidays, rituals or regional issues. Within the framework of this study, efforts were also made to present the fluctuation in the frequency of visitors to the open air museum in the discussed period of time, compared to the years 2013-2019.

Making cultural and tourist attractions accessible and inclusive for people with disability through value co-creation amidst COVID-19: a critical discourse analysis

People with disabilities (PwD) are a COVID-19 vulnerable group, and globally they are experiencing even higher rates of social exclusion than before the pandemic. Value co-creation is a process whereby firms and their customers work together to develop service offerings and provides a tool for service improvement during disruptions such as health crises. Although many cultural and tourist attractions have access and inclusion as part of their strategic plans not all of them have turned to value co-creation to address access and inclusion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They also have varying degrees of understandings about what facilitates social inclusion. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this study explores how museums have addressed access and inclusion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the degree of uptake, discourses of value co-creation, and how their responses can be categorised. The research design included semi-structured, participatory interviews with 15 managers from eight museums;and ethnographic observation and semi-structured, post-museum visit interviews with 12 PwD. Then, an iterative data analysis process using ATLAS-ti was undertaken. The results provide insight into the social inclusion of PwD in museums during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourism marketing in a metaverse context: the new reality of European museums on meta

The ‘contactless' culture established after COVID-19 and the development of metaverse technologies, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, blockchain and artificial intelligence, serve as vectors of change in museum tourism. Contactless behaviours have forced European museums to reconfigure and strengthen their digital communication and marketing strategies, mainly through social media and audiovisual content, to connect with their audience by virtual means only. This experience has laid the foundations for hybrid communication (physical and virtual) by museums and acted as a pilot experience for their activities in the metaverse of the future. The aim of this research is to analyse the online tourism communication strategies implemented by 20 European museums through Facebook (Meta) in times of COVID-19. The results show the effect of lockdown on patterns of consumption and interaction, and the impact of message content and format on user engagement and participation. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The lost value for users of cultural institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic: a life satisfaction approach.

Studies related to the assessment of the non-market values of culture typically employ methods based on stated or revealed preferences. In this paper, we implement a new emerging non-market valuation technique, namely the life satisfaction approach. In particular, we quantify in monetary values, the additional utility that people benefit from cultural experiences, as well as the additional disutility suffered by cultural consumers specifically due to the closure of cultural organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the pandemic provides a unique setting. Using a survey conducted in Denmark in the spring of 2020, we confirm the link between cultural participation and well-being by estimating a life satisfaction model, instrumenting for both income and cultural participation to avoid simultaneity problems. Furthermore, we show that fervent cultural consumers have experienced an additional welfare loss during the lockdown period, controlling for all other known life dimensions affected by the pandemic. Our results aim to highlight the role of cultural participation in sustaining life satisfaction and, consequently, to support a well-being evidence-based cultural policy that facilitate cultural accessibility as a mean to increase the individual well-being.

Derby Hyposaurus: a historical review and update of its whereabouts

The Dyrosauridae Hyposaurus derbianus Cope was loaned by Orville A. Derby in 1880 to Edward D. Cope to be studied. After Cope's death the specimens were not returned and toured several foreign institutions like the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the National History Museum (NHM) in London. We accessed several documents of the Memory and Archive Sector of the National Museum of Brazil (Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) to elucidate the real trajectory of the H. derbianus holotype. We noticed several errors in the literature, going from the assignment of the specimen as a syntype, even though it is a holotype according to the ICZN, to registration number problems. In addition, photographs of specimen PV R 8672, previously taken at the NHM, describing it as a cast of H. derbianus in the NHM's official website, were correlated with the original material studied by Cope and recognised through the labels of the Museu Nacional/UFRJ and the Geological Commission of the Brazilian Empire (Comissão Geológica do Império). Lastly, despite the fire at the Museu Nacional/UFRJ and the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to locate the holotypes at the NHM and elucidate its history.

Museum unions and social change: reopening with solidarity

Over the past two years, an explosion of organised labour activity has emerged across the museum industry in the United States. As the museum world adjusts to the 'new normal' of pandemic life, it is essential that workers continue to join forces against the rampant precarity in the cultural sector, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the often-disastrous managerial responses to government shut-downs. Central to the healing of the sector after the trauma of pandemic-related layoffs and furloughs - and critical to the success of museums in the 21st century - is the shift in the self-identification of art museum workers away from the conceptualization of creative labour as removed from 'other' kinds of labour. This psycho-social transition on a mass scale opens the possibility of a movement of 'liberatory unionism' that can work to heal not just the museum sector, but harness worker power in support of intersectional social justice.

Investigating the Relationship between Users' Behavioral Intentions and Learning Effects of VR System for Sustainable Tourism Development

Macao is a tourist city. It is home to the Ruins of Saint Paul's, a unique 100-year-old landmark, which is still standing with manual maintenance, even after three fires and reconstruction events. Therefore, the continuous preservation of its culture, heritage education, and construction are important issues for Macao. With the development of digital technology in recent years, users can quickly search historical sites and save two-dimensional and three-dimensional images and videos through smartphones. These methods also enhance the communication power of culture. Virtual browsing on a smartphone requires computing power and storage space;yet, virtual reality devices are not widely used. Therefore, augmented reality and virtual reality are rarely used simultaneously for three-dimensional interactive guided tours and operation experiences on the same theme. However, by quickly creating virtual reality scenarios and preserving historical sites on mobile devices, 4DAGE's 4DKanKan technology can provide augmented reality and metaverse virtual reality experiences. 4DKanKan can also integrate mobile guides and navigation software to connect mobile devices and assist in cultural inheritance and conduct sustainable education. This research linked this technology to the web by incorporating augmented reality and virtual reality technology to make designs and discussed the influences among service design, behavioral intentions, and learning effects. We collated and analyzed relevant data and text materials through systematic testing, observation, operation processes, and semi-structured interviews. The PLS multigroup structural model was used to explore and analyze the degree of influence and explanatory power of system quality, information quality, behavioral intention, and learning effects among themselves. The results of this study show that most users accepted the proposed innovative mode of operation and found it to be interesting and fun. Augmented reality is not limited by space or time;however, virtual reality devices taking too long to operate, switching too frequently, and having too many functional interfaces can cause operational problems. This study identified and modified the influencing factors and problems of the proposed system, with the aim of continuing to expand the applications of 4DKanKan to other cultural attractions or museums in the future. In addition, the research results can provide a reference for the sustainable development of related cultural sites.

Abolition as Durational Performance: Mutual Aid Aesthetics in Chicago's Southeast Asian Neighborhood

Responses to rising anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted multiple, often conflicting, actions including calls to defund the police, calls for more police, bystander interventions, and the exploitation of violence to promote influencers' brands. In Chicago's "Argyle" Uptown neighborhood, an area known as a Southeast Asian refugee business district, Asian Americans and local white government officials promoting liberal multiculturalist urban renewal projects used the news after the Atlanta spa shooting to advance their plans for gentrification and increased policing. How do we understand the colliding narratives of racial antagonisms, racial solidarities, and the genocidal logics of urban renewal, as they emerge at the intersection of settler colonialism and the afterlife of slavery? How is this question complicated by the entwined issues of refugee resettlement and multiculturalist solutions to anti-Asian violence? In this article, I argue abolition as durational performance offers an embodied, performance studies based analytic and methodology for the study and praxis of abolition. Abolition as durational performance centers the creation of life-affirming institutions, relations, and spaces while navigating the histories and bodily impacts of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, native genocide, and US liberal war on refugee resettlement as it is enacted through urban renewal and redevelopment projects. I focus on Axis Lab, a community-based arts and architecture organization based in Chicago, which launched its mutual aid and public arts project in June 2020. This is an abolitionist project inspired by the Black Panther breakfast and political education programs.

Advanced Technologies for Geosite Visualization and Valorization: A Review

This review attempts to summarize contributions by authors who, in the last decade, have dedicated their efforts to making geoheritage accessible to the public. Geoheritage is composed of geosites, which are, nowadays, real milestones on which field-based geological education can be conducted. However, the COVID-19 pandemic in particular has made it clear that a new paradigm is needed;a series of tools must be introduced and increasingly used to make it possible for potential users, be they academics, students, or the lay public, to experience geosites from locations that can be thousands of kilometers away. All these have been achieved over time by a wide range of evolving techniques and advanced technologies such as GIS tools, virtual reality applications and further innovative technologies such as WebGIS platforms accompanied by appropriate navigation tools (VR headsets and thumbsticks). The viewers, in this way, are provided with a complete view of a virtual geosite, which enables visualizing its characteristics at different scales. VR technologies, especially, have revealed a high degree of satisfaction, based on feedback collected from VR geosite visualization events, both by scientists, students and the general public, and could be the forefront of geosite visualization and valorization in the near future.

Editorial Introduction: Special Issue: Time, Urgency, and Collaboration in the Corporate University

Elite universities saw huge gains on their endowments while community colleges are struggling to survive4 and lipservice to "diversity" does not translate into job security.5 We began this work with the conviction that transnational, intersectional collaborative strategies are urgently needed in response to the global rise of neo-nationalism within a persistent system of neoliberal racial capitalism: violence, poverty and displacement are escalating while wealth disparities continue to increase. Productivity translates into numbers and speed, resources are distributed based on seemingly neutral algorithms, while teaching and scholarship are assessed in terms of numerically measurable outcomes. [...]while right wing movements frame academia as a hub of subversive, radical thinking and activism, innovation and collaboration in the service of transformation often face institutional obstacles. The emphasis in the essays in this volume is not just on identifying injustice and violence but on creating paths for alternatives to emerge, to, with cover artist Althea Murphy-Price, position anew, create new spaces and paces, new materials, notions of beauty, and forms of resistance, to build communities and collaborations that will "imagine otherwise" (Sharpe 2006, 115)7 and make different collaborations and worlds possible. On Our Cover Art Althea Murphy-Price received her B.A. in Fine Art from Spelman College before completing her Master of Arts in Printmaking and Painting at Purdue University and her Master of Fine Arts at Tyler School of Art, Temple University.

Use of Cloud-Based Virtual Reality in Chinese Glove Puppetry to Preserve Intangible Cultural Heritage

Chinese traditional glove puppetry is a folk art with a long history. It is worth inheriting and safeguarding this distinguished intangible cultural traditional art using virtual reality. With this background, this study integrates the digital resources of glove puppetry from the perspective of satisfying users' performance needs. In this study, a multi-user, cloud-based virtual reality glove puppetry system was developed that enhances the classic works of glove puppetry. Each user has a unique perception of the virtual environment and can interact remotely. The system involves human–computer and human–human interactions. This study also describes the design and control of glove puppets. The virtual reality system provides a unique entertainment experience to users of all ages. Through a questionnaire administered to 30 subjects after the user play, this study investigated the operation and experience of this system. According to the research findings, the proposed cloud-based VR system is not only easy to use, but also helps to preserve traditional intangible culture. Our research has high theoretical value and can help preserve traditional glove puppetry. Our cloud-based virtual reality system offers a new application for disseminating and preserving intangible cultural heritage.

The Emergence of New Contact Zones? Ethnographic Museums, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the Digital Age

In recent years, James Clifford's (1997) notion of museums as contact zones seems to have finally arrived in Germany's ethnographic museums. However, many of the newly established collaborative projects faced setbacks in 2020, as working with others on collections became impossible because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Normally not known for their digital progressiveness, museums suddenly embraced communication software and online platforms in order to stay in touch with their project partners. Apparently, the pandemic accelerated the digitization of the museum. In this article, we examine the implications of digitalization for German ethnographic museums as a contact zone. Through our conversation with Andrea Scholz since 2021 curator for transcultural collaboration at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and an expert in digital collaboration we explore what epistemological effects an expansion into the digital might have on the collaborative production of knowledge for which museums strive today. After situating the recent push for both digitalization and collaboration within the growing engagement with the colonial histories of ethnographic museums, we consider what digitalization means for collaborative projects and the unequal relations of power that continue to underlie them. Revisiting Clifford's concept, Robin Boast (2011) reminds us that, as long as the authority remains with the museums, the contact zone is an asymmetrical space. Reconstructing our conversation, we discuss how digital exchange and networking might facilitate the permanent inclusion of divergent postcolonial perspectives that might help to overcome these unequal power relations.

Evaluating Extended Reality Application for a Virtual Museum. Case Study: Remigio Crespo Museum

The COVID-19 pandemic was the main reason why many organisations decided to include information and communication technologies in their processes to allow them to continue with their activities, be it providing services to users (food, medicine, etc.), training/education or disseminating culture. In the field of culture, some museums incorporated technology into their operating environment, moving from face-to-face visits to virtual visits. However, in many museums, the lack of apps designed to solve the problem of virtual visits caused some to stop receiving visitors during the pandemic. In this context, this paper describes the development of an application with a user-centred design that incorporates extended reality to allow virtual visits to the Remigio Crespo Museum in the city of Cuenca (Ecuador). The evaluation carried out to verify the application's usability and learnability is also included. The results obtained indicate that users/visitors found the application usable and easy to learn. © 2022 IEEE.