POCOS (Preservation of Complex Objects Symposia) is a JISC-funded project centered around three international symposia at locations across the United Kingdom and taking place during 2011-2012. Electronic books will be published on each seminar topic.
Objectives
The POCOS project delivers a series of three symposia at locations across the United Kingdom at which global thought-leaders in research into the Digital Preservation of Complex Objects share and thereby extend the body of knowledge on this topic. Each seminar addresses a specific domain:
# Visualisations and Simulations
# Digital Art
# Games and Virtual Worlds
The rationale behind this is to have distinctive cases which serve both to illustrate the differences across various application domains, and crystallise common ground, approaches and techniques for the preservation of complex objects.
The seminars bring together researchers and practitioners and provide a setting to present the state-of-the-art and discuss future work.
Electronic books published on each seminar topic will make available to the wider community the talks and discussions during the events. Links to the books will be provided when they are available.
Preceding Work
Complex objects are a special case for digital preservation. In 2003 the report "Invest to Save" of the DELOS working group on Digital Preservation suggested a research agenda which includes 'Managing Complex and Dynamic Digital Entities'. More recent research addressed various aspects of preservation of complex objects, e.g. how to preserve multimedia objects, or how to use Fedora architectures in the case of complex objects. Complex objects have been addressed previously in projects such as Planets and KEEP.
However, the research and practitioner community now needs to go beyond fragmented work to synthesise the available knowledge and expand it to full-fledged methodological approaches and practical solutions. The recent discussion on future research priorities in digital preservation organised by the European Commission also highlighted this domain as one in need of future work.
Consortium
University of Portsmouth (Coordinator)
Dr. David Anderson and Dr. Janet Delve from The School of Creative Technologies coordinate the overall project. Their team is also actively involved in work on the KEEP Project and in the JISC-funded Digital Preservation Console project.
The British Library (Project manager)
Clive Billenness is co-coordinator of POCOS. The British Library coordinated the Planets project and is a Founder Member of the Open Planets Foundation (OPF).
University of Glasgow
Dr. Leo Konstantelos of the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute is the local organizer for the second POCOS symposium on Digital Art, 18-19 October 2011, Glasgow.
King’s College London
Drew Baker of the King's Visualisation Lab was the local organizer for the first POCOS symposium on Visualisations and Simulations, 16-17 June 2011, London.
Joguin SAS
Sonia Sefi of Joguin SAS, is the local organizer for the final POCOS symposium on Games and Virtual Worlds, February 2011, Cardiff.
Symposia
Visualisations and Simulations
Communities working on scientific visualisations and simulations are becoming more aware of the need to preserve; The London Charter for the Computer-Based Visualisation of Cultural Heritage addresses the importance of preservation. Work to offer practical solutions however still needs to be done. The first POCOS symposium was held on 16-17 June 2011 in London, hosted by the King's Visualisation Lab. Participants came from Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and the United States.
The symposium featured a keynote presentation by Professor John Clarke, University of Texas and talks by:
* Kenton McHenry, NCSA University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign;
* Jenny Mitcham, The Archaeology Data Service;
* Professor Richard Beacham, King's College London;
* Dr. Hugh Denard, King's College London.
Three Breakout Sessions were organised:
# Data security (moderated by Andrew Ball, Former head of IT Audit, The Audit Commission)
# Preservation strategies (moderated by William Kilbride, The Digital Preservation Coalition)
# Legal issues of preservation (moderated by David Anderson, The University of Portsmouth)
An open forum for practical solutions was hosted by Daniël Pletinckx who presented an introductory talk on Visual Dimension and V_Must.
A book summarising talks and discussions is currently under preparation.
Digital Art
The second POCOS symposium will be held in October 2011 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Gaming Environments and Virtual Worlds
The third POCOS symposium will be held in February 2012 in Cardiff, Wales.
Wider Outreach and Media Coverage
The work of POCOS has already sparked wider discussions on preservation issues; for instance, the preservation of digital art was addressed in an article in The Observer in May 2011 which also mentioned the forthcoming symposia. The preservation of visualisations and simulations featured in the Artful Science, C&EN Blog at around the same time.
Objectives
The POCOS project delivers a series of three symposia at locations across the United Kingdom at which global thought-leaders in research into the Digital Preservation of Complex Objects share and thereby extend the body of knowledge on this topic. Each seminar addresses a specific domain:
# Visualisations and Simulations
# Digital Art
# Games and Virtual Worlds
The rationale behind this is to have distinctive cases which serve both to illustrate the differences across various application domains, and crystallise common ground, approaches and techniques for the preservation of complex objects.
The seminars bring together researchers and practitioners and provide a setting to present the state-of-the-art and discuss future work.
Electronic books published on each seminar topic will make available to the wider community the talks and discussions during the events. Links to the books will be provided when they are available.
Preceding Work
Complex objects are a special case for digital preservation. In 2003 the report "Invest to Save" of the DELOS working group on Digital Preservation suggested a research agenda which includes 'Managing Complex and Dynamic Digital Entities'. More recent research addressed various aspects of preservation of complex objects, e.g. how to preserve multimedia objects, or how to use Fedora architectures in the case of complex objects. Complex objects have been addressed previously in projects such as Planets and KEEP.
However, the research and practitioner community now needs to go beyond fragmented work to synthesise the available knowledge and expand it to full-fledged methodological approaches and practical solutions. The recent discussion on future research priorities in digital preservation organised by the European Commission also highlighted this domain as one in need of future work.
Consortium
University of Portsmouth (Coordinator)
Dr. David Anderson and Dr. Janet Delve from The School of Creative Technologies coordinate the overall project. Their team is also actively involved in work on the KEEP Project and in the JISC-funded Digital Preservation Console project.
The British Library (Project manager)
Clive Billenness is co-coordinator of POCOS. The British Library coordinated the Planets project and is a Founder Member of the Open Planets Foundation (OPF).
University of Glasgow
Dr. Leo Konstantelos of the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute is the local organizer for the second POCOS symposium on Digital Art, 18-19 October 2011, Glasgow.
King’s College London
Drew Baker of the King's Visualisation Lab was the local organizer for the first POCOS symposium on Visualisations and Simulations, 16-17 June 2011, London.
Joguin SAS
Sonia Sefi of Joguin SAS, is the local organizer for the final POCOS symposium on Games and Virtual Worlds, February 2011, Cardiff.
Symposia
Visualisations and Simulations
Communities working on scientific visualisations and simulations are becoming more aware of the need to preserve; The London Charter for the Computer-Based Visualisation of Cultural Heritage addresses the importance of preservation. Work to offer practical solutions however still needs to be done. The first POCOS symposium was held on 16-17 June 2011 in London, hosted by the King's Visualisation Lab. Participants came from Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and the United States.
The symposium featured a keynote presentation by Professor John Clarke, University of Texas and talks by:
* Kenton McHenry, NCSA University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign;
* Jenny Mitcham, The Archaeology Data Service;
* Professor Richard Beacham, King's College London;
* Dr. Hugh Denard, King's College London.
Three Breakout Sessions were organised:
# Data security (moderated by Andrew Ball, Former head of IT Audit, The Audit Commission)
# Preservation strategies (moderated by William Kilbride, The Digital Preservation Coalition)
# Legal issues of preservation (moderated by David Anderson, The University of Portsmouth)
An open forum for practical solutions was hosted by Daniël Pletinckx who presented an introductory talk on Visual Dimension and V_Must.
A book summarising talks and discussions is currently under preparation.
Digital Art
The second POCOS symposium will be held in October 2011 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Gaming Environments and Virtual Worlds
The third POCOS symposium will be held in February 2012 in Cardiff, Wales.
Wider Outreach and Media Coverage
The work of POCOS has already sparked wider discussions on preservation issues; for instance, the preservation of digital art was addressed in an article in The Observer in May 2011 which also mentioned the forthcoming symposia. The preservation of visualisations and simulations featured in the Artful Science, C&EN Blog at around the same time.
On the day of 911 fighter pilots were running a training exercise. This training exercise involved a highjacked plane being crashed into a large building. This according to many of the fighter pilots in the sky at the time, was part of their confusion and inability to intercept the real craft. This training exercise was headed by Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America at the time on September 11, 2001. Though many believe this to be a conspiracy, those in charge have chalked it up to a horrible coincidence.
Opportunity - 9/11 War Games: The Air Force was running multiple war games on the morning of 9/11 simulating hijackings over the continental United States that included (at least) one "live-fly" exercise as well as simulations that placed "false blips" on FAA radar screens. These war games eerily mirrored the real events of 9/11 to the point of the Air Force running drills involving hijacked aircraft as the 9/11 plot actually unfolded. The war games & terror drills played a critical role in ensuring no Air Force fighter jocks - who had trained their entire lives for this moment - would be able to prevent the attacks from succeeding. These exercises were under Dick Cheney's management. -(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011805_simplify_case.shtml)
These "War-Games" may have been the result of threats against America as a means to be prepared for such an attack. Dick Cheney was one of the main government officials deciding that such extensive war games would take place on 9/11. This was when American intelligence had collected dozens of warnings from governments and intelligence agencies indicating that terrorists were planning to hijack civilian aircraft and crash them into American targets on the ground during the week of September 9, 2001.
Opportunity - 9/11 War Games: The Air Force was running multiple war games on the morning of 9/11 simulating hijackings over the continental United States that included (at least) one "live-fly" exercise as well as simulations that placed "false blips" on FAA radar screens. These war games eerily mirrored the real events of 9/11 to the point of the Air Force running drills involving hijacked aircraft as the 9/11 plot actually unfolded. The war games & terror drills played a critical role in ensuring no Air Force fighter jocks - who had trained their entire lives for this moment - would be able to prevent the attacks from succeeding. These exercises were under Dick Cheney's management. -(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011805_simplify_case.shtml)
These "War-Games" may have been the result of threats against America as a means to be prepared for such an attack. Dick Cheney was one of the main government officials deciding that such extensive war games would take place on 9/11. This was when American intelligence had collected dozens of warnings from governments and intelligence agencies indicating that terrorists were planning to hijack civilian aircraft and crash them into American targets on the ground during the week of September 9, 2001.
The Endless Night Vampire Ball is a biannual masquerade ball which is traditionally held in New Orleans over Halloween weekend and in Paris , France every April and is hosted by the Fangsmith and esoteric author Father Sebastiaan. In both cities this event has become a destination event and is one of the largest gathers those who appreciate vampire subculture, cosplay, costumes, masquerade balls and performance art from around the world. The Endless Night Vampire Ball is known for a strict dress code of masquerade masks, cosplay and costume. In 2010 TripAdvisor listed the the Endless Night Vampire Ball in New Orleans the #1 Halloween Party in the world.
The inspiration comes from old style masquerade balls such as those found in the Carnival of Venice and French medieval events such as The "Bal des Ardents" ("Burning Men's Ball") was intended as a Bal des sauvages ("Wild Men's Ball") and a costumed ball (morisco). The traditional statement about what the Endless Night is best describe is like " a Venetian Masque Ball meets a Vampire Court,with the energy of a rock concert and the elegance of a burlesque cabaret!” Over the years this event has been held in places such as the The Limelight in New York City, the House of Blues in New Orleans and La Machine du Moulin Rouge in Paris.
The inspiration comes from old style masquerade balls such as those found in the Carnival of Venice and French medieval events such as The "Bal des Ardents" ("Burning Men's Ball") was intended as a Bal des sauvages ("Wild Men's Ball") and a costumed ball (morisco). The traditional statement about what the Endless Night is best describe is like " a Venetian Masque Ball meets a Vampire Court,with the energy of a rock concert and the elegance of a burlesque cabaret!” Over the years this event has been held in places such as the The Limelight in New York City, the House of Blues in New Orleans and La Machine du Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Katie Nazer-Hennings (Sydney, March 23, 1992) is an Australian actress, best known for her main role in the TV Series The Sleepover Club as Brooke, in 2006.
In 2008 she plays the role of Holly in the TV Series All Saints. Next year, she plays the role of Olivia Connors in the TV Series McLeod's Daughters.
In 2005 she has been nominated "best actress in Teenage TV Series".
Filmography
* The Sleepover Club (25 episodes, 2006-2007) as Brooke
* The Final Winter (2007) as Rebecca
* All Saints (1 episode, 2008) as Holly
* McLeod's Daughters (2 episodes, 2009) as Olivia Connors
Recognition
Awards and nominations
In 2008 she plays the role of Holly in the TV Series All Saints. Next year, she plays the role of Olivia Connors in the TV Series McLeod's Daughters.
In 2005 she has been nominated "best actress in Teenage TV Series".
Filmography
* The Sleepover Club (25 episodes, 2006-2007) as Brooke
* The Final Winter (2007) as Rebecca
* All Saints (1 episode, 2008) as Holly
* McLeod's Daughters (2 episodes, 2009) as Olivia Connors
Recognition
Awards and nominations