Project: Creating a Digital [CCSen365]: exploring ways to deliver a multi-sensorial and inclusive experience of Caracas architectural heritage via mobile phone
Principal Investigator: Penélope Plaza (University of Reading)
Co-Investigators: Luisra Bergolla (Collectivox), Itamar Ferrer (Collectivox)
Funding Status: GCRF – British Council Digital Collaboration Fund (Research and Development Grant)
Start and End Date: January – August 2021
This UK-Venezuela collaboration is a scoping project to find the appropriate digital platforms to create a ‘virtual’ CCSen365 (Caracas in 365 days), a programme of heritage re-interpretation created by not-for-profit organisation Collectivox. The research question is: How might we provide a similarly rich, meaningful and memorable [CCSen365] in digital/virtual mode?
Venezuela has the lowest internet speed in the region, with 50,9% of households lacking internet access (OVSP 2019). Caracas is the 6th most violent city in the world (CCSPJP, 2020) with a deep political and economic crisis that has eroded citizens connection with their immediate social, cultural and public realm. Since 2016 [CCSen365] has provided a safe physical platform for engaging in collective storytelling walks to re-discover shared local heritage and memories. Our objective is to Research and develop ways to deliver [CCSen365] urban heritage storytelling walks in the digital space, using digital tools and platforms adapted to low speed/mobile phone access for an equally rich experience. We aim to discover alternative ways of engagement and interaction focused on local social cohesion through co-created audio-visual histories, intergenerational engagement and increased accessibility. The target audiences are residents of Caracas and the diasporic virtual community, particularly young and adult women and men over 18 years old, active users of social media via mobile phone, who lack opportunities for spending their leisure time in consumption-free cultural activities.
Publication:
Dr Penélope Plaza has published a new article in Energy Humanities, titled Rare Seeds: How Venezuelan Artists are Breaking the Spell of Oil exploring how three Venezuelan artists are working to break the spell of oil and help set the country on a new path, to move away from a long and complicated relationship with oil marked by cycles of hope and despair in Venezuela.
Energy Humanities is a digital initiative developed by the Transitions in Energy, Culture, and Society (TECS) project and the Petrocultures Research Group, gathers some of the most exciting and important insights humanities researchers provide about the social nature of our environmental crises.