I’m generally extremely suspicious of displays of excessive optimism or soft & squishy philosophies that feel too much like putting one’s head in the proverbial sand.
And yet, in the midst of so much cultural degradation, xenophobia and retrenchment, I am gobsmacked to discover that hope and optimism seem to have crept into my thoughts, like unexpected (yet not entirely unwelcome) visitors. But why?
We, that is to say the international cultural preservation community, are making enormous and truly breathtaking strides in archiving technologies and workflows (the first step in preserving) histories — and thus futures.
I hope you enjoy Arc/k Project’s first quarterly newsletter. While reading, we hope that you too will be visited by the same unexpected (but not necessarily unwanted) harbingers of hope which have lately entered our thinking.
Specifically, we will be looking at some of the work currently resulting from our pilot program with the TNRD/British Columbia Film Commission.
Why should a cultural heritage organization be involved with film commissions—let alone Hollywood? Well, the answer to that goes to the very heart of what we’re trying to do with The Arc/k Project: to incentivize Cultural Heritage Preservation through innovative, sometimes even deliberately unorthodox strategies. For details on that ground-breaking strategy, please see the non-Fake news below.
Arc/k: Creating 3D Models to Preserve Threatened Landmarks
Project developing 3D images of city’s heritage steam engine 2141
VARIETY article referencing sister companies (Arc/k and Cognition)
And please see the latest incredible work Arc/k Project has generated in cooperation with these fantastic collaborative partners.
Brian Pope
Founder & Executive Director
Our next stop was in Kamloops, British Columbia. We collaborated with the wonderful people at the Kamloops Heritage Railway for 3 days on their 100 year-old 2141 train. Sneak peek of our work – 2141 train preview.
Lastly, we went to the Secwepemc Museum & Heritage Park, also in Kamloops British Columbia, where we met with Archivist Carryl Armstrong. Here, we taught her and her staff photogrammetry techniques so that they could continue to archive their work themselves.
Very special thanks to Victoria Weller, Film Commissioner of the Thompson-Nicola Film Commission.
If you have digital photo collections of important and/or endangered archaeological sites, works of art, ancient cities or other treasures of the ancient world (on Instagram, Picasa, Flickr, or other) or even stored on hard drives, consider whether they may be of help in digital archiving as 3D models (thus protecting against complete loss in a worst-case scenario). Upload here.
Arc/k will be presenting its VR experiences in the exhibition hall during the entirety of the event.
Founder Brian Pope will be speaking at a panel with LOOT Interactive on June 23rd:
Virtual Reality & Space: Creating Storytelling Experiences That Resonate
