in the Sphere of Culture
(Centre PIC)
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The Centre on the Problems of Informatization in the Sphere of Culture (Centre PIC) |
Office 54,
# 5, the 5th Magistralnaja ul.
123007, Moscow, Russia
Tel/fax + 7 095 940 0284
E-mail: Nbrakker@cpic.ru
The Centre of Informatization in the Sphere of Culture of the Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation (Centre PIC) was organised in 1992, after the USSR was divided into independent states, from personnel of the Computer Centre, the Ministry of Culture, USSR. Centre PIC is to investigate new information and communication technologies and applications in the cultural area.
Centre PIC is a state non-for profit research and design body in the field of Culture & Technology subordinate to the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications and the Federal Agency on Culture and Cinematography, Russian Federation, and co-operates with the Ministry of Science and Technological Policy of Russia, with Russian museums, libraries and other cultural institutions, regional administrations etc. In 1995 the Ministry of Culture, Russian Federation organised the Centre of Multimedia Technologies (as a subsidiary of Centre PIC) to co-ordinate the efforts of different bodies connected with multimedia publishing and distribution in culture and art. The Centre’s services include evaluation of proposed projects and works-in-process. Centre PIC monitors and analyses new information and communication technologies in culture and art (in Russia and internationally) and presents annuals reports on the topic.
The Centre develops and installs archiving and retrieval systems, including images, in museums. The Centre also creates and produces multimedia CD-ROMs in the areas of culture and art. The latest multimedia CD-ROM projects of Centre PIC are “West European Drawing of XIV - XIX centuries. Kunsthalle Collection in Bremen” (in Russian and German); the encyclopaedia of the works of 500 international masters in the fields of painting, architecture and other fine arts (in Russian); “A.S. Pushkin. Full Collection” (in Russian) – to the 200th anniversary. Multimedia support of the exhibition “Face Reconstruction by skull. The Method of Michael Gerasimov” was designed and installed on the computer at the exhibition hall of the State Biological Museum after K.A. Timiryazev and on the Internet.
Centre PIC participates in organising the annual CD-ROM contest “Content” and awards the prize “The Best Multimedia edition in Culture, Art and Education” established by the Ministry of Culture of Russia. From 2002 the contest summing up and awards are held at EVA Moscow conferences. Since 1996 Centre PIC supports a data base of Russian CD-ROMs on culture, art and education and a data-base of Russian electronic publishers and distributors. The illustrated catalogue of Russian CD-ROMs on culture, art and education and the catalogue of Russian electronic publishers and distributors are opened in the Internet
( http://www.museum.ru/CPIK_KATALOG_CD-ROM- in Russian).
Centre PIC takes part in EU Projects. In the framework of EC project EVA Cluster (“Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts”) in 1998 Centre PIC organised EVA’98 Moscow (The State Tretyakov Gallery, 26-30 October 1998), the first international event in Russia and East Europe on new information technologies in the cultural area (600 participants, 70 papers) and then EVA’99 Moscow (the State Tretyakov Gallery, 25 – 29 October 1999), which gathered 650 participants and 100 papers and EVA2000 Moscow (The State Tretyakov Gallery, October, 30 – November, 3, 2000, http://www.artinfo.ru/eva) – 830 participants, 130 papers. During the conferences the exhibition “Multimedia in Culture, Art, Education” are organised (40 exhibitors, 100 exhibits), the illustrated exhibition catalogues are published on the Internet; EVA2001 Moscow and the 5th EVA2002 Moscow and exhibition (the State Tretyakov Gallery, December 2001 and 2002) as a part of EVAN project. New EVA Moscow site (www.evarussia.ru) is opened and accessible. In 2003 and on 2004 the 6th and the 7th annual international conferences EVA Moscow were organised traditionally in the State Tretyakov Gallery on the first week of December with the topic “Information for All: Culture and Information Society technologies”.
Organising the international conferences Centre PIC gathered a data-base of Russian specialists active in ICT in cultural area (about 1500 persons).
New activities of Centre PIC are connected with audiovisual heritage. In May 2001 Centre PIC was the organiser of the First All-Russia Conference on audioculturology, audioarchiving and new technologies ECHOLOT (200 participants, 70 papers, presentations and demonstrations). The second ECHOLOT 2002 was held in the Cinema museum, Moscow 1 – 4 October 2002 (www.echo-net.ru). The Conference gathered 216 delegates, 86 institutions, 47 papers were presented. Centre PIC gathers information on audio collections in Russia and keeps electronic catalogue of Russian audio collections holders (institutions and persons) with collections descriptions. In 2003 and 2004 ECHOLOT became an annual international event embedded into EVA conferences, organised by Centre PIC and the State Literary Museum, supported by the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography.
In the framework of Cultivate-Russia EC project Centre PIC was the organiser of the International Conference “Culture: from Information to Knowledge: the role of culture in the knowledge based society” (Russian State Library, Moscow, 7 - 9 April 2003 www.conf.cultivate.ru).
Centre PIC takes part in the activities of Russian Museum Association on Documentation and Technologies (ADIT – www.adit.ru ), in the Russian branch of ICOMOS and an active partner of the Russian Committee of the UNESCO “Information for All” Programme (www.ifap.ru ). Centre PIC was a co-organiser of the International conference “Information for All UNESCO Programme: Universal Access to Information”, Saint-Petersburg, 23 – 25 June, 2004
(http://confifap.cpic.ru/spb2004/eng/info/str_6.html ).
Specialists of Centre PIC participate and speak at Russian and international professional conferences (ADIT 1997-2004; Crimea 1999-2004; IMS 99; IMS-IST2000, EVA 98 London, EVA 97 Brussels, EVA 98 Cambridge, EVA 99 Florence, EVA 99 Edinburg, EVA 2000 Edinburg, EVA 2000 Gifu, EVA 2001 Florence, EVA 2001 Berlin, Sphere - Helsinki 2001, E-MAL-Riga-2002, EVA2002 London, EVA-MINERVA Jerusalem 2004 and others).
Centre PIC specialists were the authors of the “ICT in culture” section of the “Russia e-readiness: analytical report” which was prepared in 2004 by the Institute of the Information Society within the framework of the World Bank infoDev Programme.
In 2004 Centre PIC participated in the development of the “ICT in Culture” programme as a part of the city programme “e-Moscow” and in the project “Monitoring of the e-readiness in the city of Moscow”.
In 2004 Centre PIC became a partner of the EC MINERVA PLUS project as a representative of the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications, Russian federation and the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography. In the framework of MINERVA PLUS the Russian web site (www.minervaplus.ru) was developed. It presents the information on NRG activities, on history, structure, achievements, progress and special events of MINERVA and MINERVA PLUS. Basic documents of the both projects are also available on the web site in Russian.
EC Grants and Contracts (1998-2000):
Participation in EC Projects (2001 – 2004)