Mingei will explore the possibilities of representing and making accessible both tangible and intangible aspects of craft as cultural heritage (CH). Heritage Crafts (HCs) involve craft artefacts, materials, and tools and encompass craftsmanship as a form of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Intangible HC dimensions include dexterity, know-how, and skilled use of tools, as well as, tradition, and identity of the communities in which they are, or were, practiced. HCs are part of the history and have impact upon the economy of the areas in which they flourish. The significance and urgency to the preservation of HCs is underscored, as several are threatened with extinction. Despite their cultural significance efforts for HC representation and preservation are scattered geographically and thematically. Mingei will provide means to establish HC representations based on digital assets, semantics, existing literature and repositories, as well as, mature digitisation and representation technologies. These representations will capture and preserve tangible and intangible dimensions of HCs. Central to craftsmanship is skill and its transmission from master to apprentice. Mingei will capture the motion and tool usage of HC practitioners, from Living Human Treasures and archive documentaries, in order to preserve and illustrate skill and tool manipulation. The represented knowledge will be availed through compelling experiential presentations, using storytelling and educational applications and based on AR and MR and the Internet. Engaging cultural experiences have positive impact on interest growth and tourism, which support HC communities and institutions and foster HC sustainability and preservation. The consortium brings together complementary expertise and content. Pilot themes exhibit richness in tangible and intangible dimensions and are directly related to European history.

CRAEFT will deepen our understanding of making activities that include care, judgement, and dexterity standing on Anthropology, Knowledge Representation, Cognitive Science, Art History, Advanced Digitisation, Audiovisual & Haptic Immersivity, and Computational Intelligence to cover the multifaceted expression of crafts as living and developing heritage, as a sustainable source of income, and as the expression of the mind through imagery, technology, and sedimented knowledge. A generative approach will prove sufficiency for digital conservation, reenactable preservation, and scaling of approach for the full range of materials and techniques. CRAEFT will catalyse craft education and training with intuitive digital aids, telecommunications, craft-specific simulators, advanced immersivity, and high-end digitisation, to widen access, economise learning, increase exercisability, and relax remoteness constraints in craft learning. The integration of haptics intelligence haptics in digital design connects tacit knowledge in computer-aided craft-specific design tools. Workflow simulation will support experimental archaeology for the recovery of lost techniques. The analytic workflow analysis leads to digital fabrication opportunities for menial tasks, material savings and reuse, and reduction of energy consumption. Digital dimensions attached to individual works of craft will enable certification and attachment of digital content, but also enable reputation and community building, supported by a Community Portal for professionals and the public that connects to the New Media, hosts heterogeneous craft portforlios, and registers practitioner credentials. The efficacy of the approach will be piloted in eight representative craft instances with the cross-cutting objectives of Craft Education & Training, Design, Valorisation, and Community services across the range of materials.

ARACNE project focuses on the cultural heritage of the European silk production and its preservation, protection and valorisation; it aims at revigorating traditional skills through the adaptive reuse of the common cultural and artistic legacy and at shaping a silk-linked European cultural identity. Literally and metaphorically a thread that has woven the European culture, silk greatly contributed to the development of the European economy and arts. The production and the past and present development of the silk sector can be again the common basis for a future European Silk Route intended as a cultural itinerary across Europe. To create a wide and well-connected network that, starting from the historical path followed by Marco Polo in his travels to East, even includes the routes of production and commercialization of silk in Europe in the following centuries, we aim to: • Bring back silk production in vogue by reconstructing a resilient and innovative silk ecosystem that retraces the concerned European countries and promotes traditions, architecture, and both tangible and intangible heritages. The consolidation of an European Silk Route will encourage links and shared activities among European cities and regions, specifically among museums, study and research centres to strengthen the preservation and protection of their culture and promote innovations in production and trade; • Contribute to improve skills and competitiveness of silk-related European Cultural and Creative Industries through the renewal, co-development and the implementation of human-centered and place-specific silk-based cultural products, processes and service innovations, leveraging on digital applications and cutting-edge technologies, to foster the transition to more sustainable business models, and promote economic and social growth, and strengthen the reputation of European countries abroad. The project will also meet the Green Deal and New European Bauhaus macro-objectives.

Pluggable Social Platform for Heritage Awareness and Participation (PLUGGY) will support citizens in shaping cultural heritage and being shaped by it. PLUGGY will enable them to share their local knowledge and everyday experience with others. The participation will include the contribution of cultural institutions and digital libraries, building extensive networks around a common interest in connecting past, present and future. PLUGGY frames its objectives around the Faro Convention, in line with new social paradigms which declare heritage as an asset and a responsibility for all, aiming to encompass greater democratic participative actions with concern for the local and the everyday. The PLUGGY Social Platform will facilitate a continuing process for creating, modifying and safeguarding heritage where citizens will be prosumers and maintainers of cultural activities. It will be web based, easily accessed and will allow the development of shared identity and differentiation. PLUGGY Social Platform’s users will curate stories using the PLUGGY Curatorial Tool. Content will be both crowdsourced and retrieved from digital collections, allowing users to create links between seemingly unrelated facts, events, people and digitized collections, leading to new approaches of presenting cultural resources, and new ways of experiencing them. PLUGGY will provide the necessary architecture for the creation of pluggable applications, allowing for beyond-the-project, not yet imagined ways to utilize the content on the social platform, while focusing on the design of the social interaction, helping to build new virtual heritage communities. The PLUGGY consortium spans 5 countries and includes 4 academic partners (ICCS, TUK, UMA, ICL), a total of 10 museums (PIOP, ESM) and 3 SMEs (CLIO, VIA, XTS) in the fields of cultural heritage and creative applications. They cover the areas of cultural heritage, social platforms, authoring tools, VR/AR, knowledge management, semantics and 3D audio.