Advances in immersive technology are an important driver of the experience economy, enhancing the breadth, depth and intensity of the visiting experience at arts and cultural institutions. Yet, they usually are neither readily available nor broadly accessible. First, they require specific developments that can hardly be carried out by most institutions. Second, the inherent affordance of immersive propositions is questioned by the currently evolving world health situation. The objective of the Artcast4D project is to develop a technological framework and tools that will unleash the potential of EU CCIs for designing and developing cost-effective, non-invasive, immersive and interactive users experiences. Using both academic and industrial approaches, it relies on theoretical and experimental research, open source software and hardware development together with challenging case studies and onsite beta testing implementations. The innovation lies in the ability to create immersive environments in open spaces, with minimally intrusive projection technology, on the capability to design interactive applications with crowd movement and sensing capabilities, and on the open source availability and ability to extend the solutions. Artcast4D will technically and financially promote the implementation of the technology outside the cultural institutions, implementing 4 pilots in cities around the world (Issy-les-Moulineaux, Hounslow, Valencia, Athens), each one with different artistic topics and experiences, and bringing together creative actors and industrial partners with the civil society. All pilots will include training workshops, and open training modules will be designed for developers and artists. The projects outcomes will also help to derive policy guidelines on how to strengthen the competitiveness and innovation potential of CCIs on national level and EU-level.

PALIMPSEST takes inspiration from the original meaning of the Greek word παλίμψηστος (palimpsestos, ‘again’ + ‘scrape’), which describes the process of the writing practices over papyrus: existing text was scraped and washed off, the surface re-smoothed, and the new literary material written on the saved material. PALIMPSEST adopts this re-writing perspective and grounds it on a living heritage approach. PALIMPSEST envisages regenerating the lost “sustainability wisdom” underlying the production of heritage landscapes through the activation of co-creation processes involving creative actors, technical stakeholders and civic society. Here architecture, design and art practices will dialogue with place-specific needs and broad systemic challenges to imagine new scenarios and experiment with innovative practices connecting human actions, landscape heritage and sustainability objectives. Such experiments will envision novel Landscape Scenarios aiming at producing dedicated Landscape Services, inspired by the generation of beneficial outcomes on ecosystem functions, which the creative contribution of CCIs will empower. Human practices will arise as relevant agents of a new sustainable palimpsest process. PALIMPSEST will integrate the aforementioned Landscape Services in environmental-sensitive solutions with sustainable finance infrastructures to support the sharing and circulating of positive externalities at different levels among the landscape service actors and communities. PALIMPSEST revolves around three pilots with strong cultural identities and relevant environmental problems: Lodz (PL), a UNESCO city of films fighting the highest air pollution levels in Europe; Milan fringes (IT), traditional agricultural landscapes struggling with unsustainable water use; Jerez de la Frontera (ES), an Andalusian wine landscape and vernacular site challenged by renewable energy production facilities.