On the occasion of Timisoara 2023 European Capital of Culture, Fachhochschule St. Pölten in partnership with the Politehnica University of Timisoara, the Timisoara 2023 European Capital of Culture Association and the National Museum of Banat, and under the E3UDRES2 European university alliance invites you to find out the latest news about the most important cultural programme of 2023 in Romania, within the framework of the "Spotlight Heritage Timisoara - International Festival of Culture and Digital Heritage - XR Demonstrations" on 18 - 20 September 2023, between 10:00 - 17:00 in the main hall at the Fachhochschule St. Pölten, Campus-Platz 1, St. Pölten, Austria

The festival will feature an interactive installation, visible through virtual and mixed reality glasses, a concept of the Politehnica University of Timisoara.

During the XR demonstrations, the participants will have the opportunity to interact with a complex real-virtual world by using the latest generation digital technologies that showcase the landmarks of Timisoara and to virtually walk the streets of the city, visit and learn about the most famous monuments without leaving Austria.

The XR demonstrations and interactive installations combine illustrations and documented stories, presented in a multiplied structure that overlaps print visuals with interactive spaces through touch screens, mobile applications, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed (XR) applications.

In the Spotlight Heritage Timișoara Virtual Reality Application, you will be able to take a "short tour" through the history of Timisoara's old quarters and four emblematic neighborhoods of Timisoara - Iosefin, Elisabetin, Fabric, and Cetate, and listen to stories of the city's multicultural and multiethnic history with the help of virtual reality technologies. Starting from a panoramic, spectacular perspective of the city, participants will be able to "teleport" to the streets, parks, or public squares, visiting iconic landmarks as they would in real life. Taking advantage of the interactions offered by VR technology, high-quality 360 images, 3D videos, and 3D scans, photos, and videos, you will learn about historical and architectural data and personal memories from the past and present, documented in Spotlight Heritage Timișoara. The application is bilingual, in Romanian and English.

The Spotlight Heritage Timișoara Mixed Reality Application gives the opportunity to test augmented and mixed reality technologies. Using special holographic glasses, the participants will interact both with the physical objects around them and be able to manipulate in real-time virtual heritage objects obtained by 3D scans of the real ones from the collection of the National Museum of Banat. By finding information about the heritage objects, you can create your own personal mixed reality museum exhibition.

The applications are a concept of the Politehnica University of Timisoara and were developed jointly by academics and students from the Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, Universita Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy, and Aalborg University, Denmark: https://spotlight-timisoara.eu/mobil-ar-vr/. 

The participants will actively interact with „Patterns of Poetry” by the new media artist from Timisoara, 13m10j (Marius Jurca), a graphical installation, customized software to discover Timisoara through poetry and color, based on the 9 poems created by the writer Robert Șerban, under the title "Poems about Miss Timișoara", for the Spotlight Heritage Timisoara project.

Spotlight Heritage Timisoara is a digital cultural initiative of the Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Romania, in partnership with the National Museum of Banat, which overlays heritage in digital and physical format. Spotlight Heritage Timișoara raises public interest in Timișoara's marginalized and neglected historic neighborhoods by using guided tours and digital storytelling to empower locals and tourists to see, hear, feel, act, co-create and internalize the city. It is also a model of participatory crowdsourcing digital cultural heritage storytelling of the city to enable citizens and tourists to turn their technological appetite into culture. The project blends personal memories, past and present, with historical and architectural data, by digitally overlaying intangible heritage from books, memories, oral histories and art, as five women guide our project each year.

The digital and physical itineraries of Iosefin (2019), Elisabetin (2020), Fabric (2021), Cetate (2022), all of the above, and Giroc (2023) reveal their stories through multiple layers: A museum exhibition, a street exhibition, an online website, mobile apps, an augmented reality app, a virtual reality app (history & heritage), a holographic mixed reality app, mixed reality with 3D heritage artefacts, SH Culture App - augmented reality for heritage & virtual reality apps with panoramic views of Timisoara, SH Culture NFTs apps, Spotlight Heritage International Student Contest, International Digital Culture & Spotlight Heritage Festival & Talks, theatre & dance happenings and digital installations, mediated and virtual tours, a final catalogue.

See more about the event here!

Find out more about the Spotlight Heritage Timisoara event and applications:

• Website: https://spotlight-timisoara.eu/
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SpotlightHeritageTimisoara/  
• Twitter: @spotlight_TM21
• Instagram: @spotlight_tm

The digital components of the project are accessible online at https://spotlight-timisoara.eu/ and via mobile apps that can be downloaded from Android and Apple stores or by searching "Spotlight Heritage Timisoara".

• App link for Android users: https://is.gd/SjiIgv  
• App link for iOS users: https://is.gd/y6JxeV  

Patrimoniul sub reflectoare / Spotlight Heritage Timișoara is a digital cultural initiative of Politehnica University Timisoara in partnership with the National Museum of Banat, part of the Cultural Programme Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture. Cultural project co-financed by the Center for Projects of the Municipality of Timișoara, Timiș County Council, Ministry of Culture, Romania, EEA and Norway Grants. In Austria, the project is presented at the initiative of the Fachhochschule St. Pölten and E3UDRES2 European university alliance.

The event is part of the Spotlight Heritage Timișoara digital cultural initiative, part of the Cultural Programme Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture and is co-funded by EEA and Norway Grants.