Sant Feliu lays the foundation stone of what will be its first virtual museum as a result of the project 'Sant Feliu Immersive: Museum of Digital Culture Experiences'.
- First of all, what do we mean by the term digital culture?
When we talk about digital culture we mean creations, productions or artistic manifestations related to the digital world and technology. In this sense, digital culture aims to bring together all the possible intersections between traditional artistic languages and the tools of the digital world, which result in innovative mutations of classical expressive forms. Interactivity, immediacy or simultaneity are also defining features of digital culture, which give culture a special capacity for participation and dissemination.
And why use immersive technology in a museum? Immersive artistic creation surrounds the audience and makes them feel fully involved in the experience. In this way, the viewer does not just look at the work, but becomes part of it and uses other senses beyond that of sight. Immersive art has various manifestations, but it always looks for the audience to be totally involved in what is happening.
- Where did this idea of creating an immersive museum in Sant Feliu come from?
There have been several factors to conceptualize and create this local Immersive Museum, specifically this project:
a) It began to take shape in 2021 when the resident artist and member of our network of innovative entrepreneurs 'INnòmades', Pamela Briones, designed and created 8 representations artistic in the form of images of local and international reference women in different areas and historical times that are examples of female empowerment and struggle. Among them are the poet Joana Raspall, the woman from Sant Feliuen prosecuted for witchcraft Blanca Bardiera and other international figures such as Marie Curie, Hypatia d'Alexandria, Hedy Lamarr, Ada Lovelace, Amelia Earhart and Rosalind Franklin. These portrait representations ended with eight paintings of local and international reference female figures.
These works are currently permanently installed in the CO-Innova building (Torre del Roser) and were also part, last June 2023, of the initiative promoted by a group of local artists called ' Circuit d'Art' where, for eight days, citizens toured the city, visiting and discovering the various spaces that hosted the work of more than 30 artists from Sant Feliuen.
b) On the other hand, the visit in November 2022 of Marisol López, Director General of Innovation and Digital Culture of the Department of Culture, and the Minister of Culture Natàlia Garriga also contributed to the conception and actual approach of the idea of the Immersive Museum of Sant Feliu. Both highlighted the Government of the Generalitat's commitment to digital culture and artistic expressions related to the digital world and technology, where a project such as the compilation of all these artistic works (physical and digital) would have a place. of local authors of digital culture at Torre del Roser.
c) Also Pablo Muiño, as Head of the municipal innovation program of the City Council, was an active part of the 2nd working table of the Digital Culture Plan, where it was started the National Digital Culture Plan of the Generalitat de Catalunya 2025. This strategic plan, confirmed in the Government Plan, prioritized the development of a new Digital Culture Plan 2025 in a participatory manner by all the actors involved: research centers and creation, universities, artists, companies, events, etc. In that work meeting, the various possible intersections between traditional artistic languages and the tools of the digital world that were being given to the city and the metropolitan area were highlighted.
d) Local Employment and Development Agent (AODL) Ester Francisco, who previously participated in the creation and dynamism of activities as part of the 2022 CatVers Festival (virtual environment created by the Blockchain Center of Catalonia), began to devise the project by consulting and collecting feedback from some local actors in the world of culture such as Anabel López, a reference figure in bringing together and dynamizing the artistic field of the Montserrat Library Roig as well as from the Department of Culture of the Sant Feliu de Llobregat City Council, Anna Royo and César Lorenzo.
All these factors were key to the genesis and initial approach of this project, which ended up being conceived and defined thanks to the support of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat, which opened a line of subsidies for to cultural projects that use immersive technology, with the aim of promoting the creation of immersive spaces and experiences throughout the territory as well as immersive content and experiences in the understanding that they incorporate innovation and technology into the country's cultural proposals and policies . The project 'Sant Feliu Immersive: Museum of digital cultural experiences' is subsidized by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat with a grant of €8,978.
- What is being carried out? How is the development of the Immersive Museum going?
Well, it consists of three parts:
1) THE VIRTUAL CONTAINER: A DIGITAL TWIN AS A PLATFORM FOR INTERACTIVE DIGITAL CONTENT
On the one hand, it consists in the creation of a virtual Museum, created and modeled in 3D by the video game developer and entrepreneur INnòmada, Almudena Huete, together with the collaboration of the specialist in 3D environments Andrea Álvarez and also INnòmada Francisco Sanchez This immersive virtual environment will be the representation of the Torre del Roser building that can be visited and interacted with the contents using a computer or virtual reality glasses.
This model is inspired by the digital twin created with the BIM (Building Information Modeling) model already used in previous projects such as the room created in the virtual environment designed by the Blockchain Center of Catalonia called CatVers adapting and optimizing it to an immersive experience.
Obviously, the Torre del Roser building will also be a physical repository of the digital culture works of this Immersive Museum.
2) DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL CONTENT: WORKS AND EXPERIENCES
The aim of this project is also to bring physical and digital art together.
Therefore, in this Museum, works and experiences, physical art and digital art will coexist.
2.1 VIRTUAL WORKS
Inside this immersive space (metaverse) you can have two immersive experiences:
- Correfoc Simulator VR Experience:
One of them is being able to experience the game of the video game 'Correfoc Simulator', created by Roberto Serrano at the 'Power UP JAM Sant Feliu' in Llobregat, using virtual reality glasses.
This creator has worked on the adaptation of this video game about the traditional imagination of Sant Feliu, optimizing it for the use of virtual reality (VR) with which you can experience how the correfoc is lived, from the inside , and watching how the figures of the Heron and the Dragon chase the participants.
Roberto Serrano, together with Almudena Huete, experience coordinator of the Immersive Museum, have integrated this experience into the virtual environment in order to be able to experience it while walking through the virtual space of the Torre del Roser building.
This immersive/virtual part of the project is also intended, for a second phase, as a 'container' for the numerous audiovisual works and video games created in innovative projects such as the acceleration programs Power UP, FEMPower UP and now Power UP+ and the various JAMS held where playable demos and some beta video games have emerged.
Another of the experiences with which you can interact will be a room that will act as an exhibition hall for works of art, preferably by local artists who want to experiment with art and digital culture.
This subspace will have the collaboration of several local artists, who will contribute some piece that they want to exhibit and, therefore, these works will be digitized so that they will be shown in the virtual space in 3D.
Both with VR glasses and using a conventional computer, it will be possible to see the pieces digitized and installed in the virtual museum where you will be able to consult the name of the artist and a brief description of the work.
The physical part of which the project is made up is located in 3 different spaces in the Torre del Roser building. It will be possible to experience immersive technologies that will bring us closer to the world of local digital culture.
- Reference women come to life with augmented reality
Taking advantage of the works that the artist and INnòmada Pamela Briones created and that are installed in the CO-Innova building, an experience has been devised where we can learn about the history of women from the Sant Feliuen imaginary such as Blanca Bardiera or Joana Brush explained by themselves.
How was this accomplished? Well, with the application of augmented reality to plastic works. To develop this experience, we had to work with specific programs such as Spark AR Studio with which we could 'animate' the women's faces to give the most realistic effect possible and by applying a voice that fit the character's profile. Thus, these experiences can be observed using a mobile device with which the image will be scanned and come to life through the screen.
In this corner, we will introduce citizens to the world of literature, emphasizing the city's most representative author, Joana Raspall. Through a holographic booth, visitors will be able to see an audiovisual content that will recite a poem by the local author and at the same time can be seen artistically represented with watercolor drawings as a hologram. This content was part of the 'Drawn Poetry' project promoted by the Open University of Catalonia and Catorze.
- Let's be musicians for a day!
This corner would be a hybrid between the physical and virtual part of the project. On the one hand, on Thursday December 14 at 11 a.m. at Torre del Roser an experimental session will be held where we will have the collaboration of a group of people large to which we want to bring artificial intelligence closer by making them aware of the uses it can have for their daily lives.
2.2 WORKS and PHYSICAL ELEMENTS
The Torre del Roser building will therefore become a physical repository of cultural works (such as the 8 physical portraits with images of local and international reference women) of this Immersive Museum as well as a facilitator of the physical elements (glasses of virtual reality, holographic cabins, bartop/recreational machine...but also mobile devices and tablets) that will allow access to the works and experiences of digital culture.
Through the face-to-face tour that will guide visitors through the different corners, with works and experiences, people will interact and get involved with different artistic manifestations (video games, music...) and immersive technologies (virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms, metaverses , data visualization, AI, app...).
In other words, the Immersive Museum of Sant Feliu brings together physical art and digital art, enhancing the coexistence and linking of works and experiences. Through this journey we try to take advantage of our senses, enhancing evocative and sensitive elements to memories and experiences and stimulating our exploration and sensations as well as the impulse to interact with the environment and the discovery and learning of skills digital technologies.
This tour will be carried out through the common thread of different numbered informative panels and signage designed with the aim that visitors feel like participants and not mere observers of the multidimensional and interactive works, for all this the visitors will feel like protagonists of an experience closer to a video game than a regular art exhibition.
3) GARAGE/WORKSHOP, AN EXPERIMENTAL LABORATORY
The Immersive Museum will also have a Garage, which will facilitate experimentation in an interdisciplinary collaborative workshop format with peer-to-peer learning projects and from which future works and expository experiences will emerge.
For example, one of the projects that will be worked on is the transformation of the Interactive CD-ROM 'El Tomb de la Garsa', Innova Award of the Barcelona Provincial Council awarded to Sant Feliu City Council de Llobregat in 1998, in something adapted to current technologies, thus giving new life to a cultural product that the format (CD-ROM) has made obsolete.
Another initiative that will form part of the Garage of the Immersive Museum is the exhibition and dissemination of the Cultura app, created by the Sant Feliuen cooperative MTK Space as part of the Spring Festival 2021, an application that made it possible to get to know the figures of the traditional imagination of the city through Augmented Reality (AR) technology and thus discover the Devils, Giants and Timbalists, among others, of the city of Sant Feliu de Llobregat.
The Creative Garage of the Immersive Museum has also started working on the project of 'El Sant Feliu Desaparegut'. The aim of this is to show in the virtual environment 3D recreations of some historic buildings in the city that no longer exist such as the facade of the Torre dels Dimonis or that of some recreated as they were 100 years ago such as the facade of Palau Falguera or that of the Pins d'Or residence. Although it is a project still under construction, when the virtual museum opens its doors it will be possible to observe some of the aforementioned recreations created by the developers of 3D environments Almudena Huete and Andrea Álvarez.
But undoubtedly the most emblematic project of the Garage of the Immersive Museum in 2023 will be the WORKSHOP 'Explore art, music and cuisine through artificial intelligence'.
'Exploring art, music and cooking through artificial intelligence' will discuss the different applications that artificial intelligence can have in helping us in our daily lives . For example using ChatGPT to create cooking recipes adapted to specific needs, Midjourney to feel like artists creating unique images or applications like MusicGen that respect copyright and allow us to create our own songs based on the commands that we indicate In this session, participants will generate music through an interactive process where the user can in real-time create and customize electronic music by taking a series of predefined variables as input (e.g. tempo, key, and musical genre ). This workshop will be conducted by INnómada entrepreneur and teacher Jose Luis Hernández as a pilot test of his digital literacy project 'rompiendolabrecha.org'.
On the other hand, the musical works that the participants create at the end of the session will be transferred to the virtual environment where the resulting creations generated by artificial intelligence can be heard. Finally, a corner with the technical equipment and instructions will be permanently installed in the Torre del Roser for visitors who want to experiment with artificial intelligence to make their musical creations which will then be added to the space virtual
'Sant Feliu Immersiu: Museum of Digital Culture Experiences', due to its instrumental and facilitating nature, intends to complement and enrich the initiatives of Digital Innovation HUB Media & Gaming with actions and elements of Digital Culture and incorporate the collaboration of different actors and sectoral agents and civil society: research and creation centers, universities, artists, companies, events, etc. The project starts from the basis that the task of promoting and implementing this collection of digital experiences with a story does not belong solely to the City Council as the driving institution of this instrument, but that the co-responsibility of citizens and agents quadruple helix are a key element for the success of the project and, therefore, of the implementation of the 'Sant Feliu Immersive: Museum of Digital Culture Experiences', with the aim of placing to local cultural and creative companies and initiatives at the forefront of innovation, technology and the digital world.
The main objective of this project is for it to gradually grow and feed itself with content in order to spread local culture using the museum as a showcase to give visibility to the creative talent of our city.
"This action is subsidized by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia as part of the local development support programs."
This project is being carried out with the support of:
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