October 12, 2008
Creating Virtual 3D Self-Portraits, Landscapes and Architectures for Second Life
Judith Doyle and David McIntosh - December 8 to 12, 2008

Virtual and real worlds increasingly overlap and influence each other. Virtual worlds are becoming more realistic, moving from 2 dimensions to 3 dimensions, and more interactive, supporting complex social networks, interpersonal personal relations and collaborative art projects. At the same time, the virtual world is becoming a site of total omnipresent memory and recall that can constrain and control real world possibilities for change. Forgetting would seem to be a crucial counterpart to memory in building creative intersections between real and virtual worlds.

This workshop builds on the concept of creative reconstruction of real/virtual world relations by introducing participants to the digital tools and processes for creating 3D art works in Second Life. Participants will create and customize an avatar character which is a self-portrait and which assists people with the real world problem of remembering and forgetting. Participants will be provided with inventory items for their avatars including programming scripts, animations and building tools, and will customize a wardrobe and create surface textures. Participants will also create virtual scenographies, 3D landscape and architectural contexts for their 3D virtual self-portraits to inhabit. Participants will collaborate to build these elements into a virtual installation in Second Life on the Ontario College of Art & Design's Virtual Campus on Odyssey Island. Participants will construct 3D objects with custom claddings for the installation that will allow for embedding 2D materials, including photos, drawings, sound, and video, and that address memory and forgetting. The workshop will conclude with a live, on-line exhibit and performance of the project in Second Life for an International gathering of artists/avatars from such locations as Barcelona, Naples, Toronto and Beijing.

Workshop leaders Judith Doyle and David McIntosh are Professors at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, Canada. Judith Doyle is a multimedia artist whose recent work has focused on assistive memory, mixed reality, 3D space and new interfaces for artists' collaboration in virtual space. David McIntosh is a mobile media artist and critical theorist whose recent work has focused on innovative cellphone applications and the impact of mobile communications devices on cultural and economic development.

August 21, 2008
The Bartolome de las Casas Centre and the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTreF) of Argentina signed an agreement.

The Centro Bartolomé de las Casas (CBC) and the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTreF) of Argentina has signed a cooperation agreement focusing mainly on formalizing and increasing the activities being developed between the Amauta Project of the CBC and the Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre (CEIArtE) of UNTreF.

This agreement was signed to further develop joint activities, including: workshop, artistic residencies and research/creation projects of common interest. With this new agreement, Amauta is giving another step forward to support both production and artistic research in the Cusco region.

Within the framework of the activities being developed by Amuata and CEIArtE we could mention, among others: the Interactive Art workshop, taught by Natalia Pajariño and Bernardo Piñero in 2007, and Fundamentals of Electronics for Media Artists, taught by Gerardo Della Vecchia in 2008. All three holds a degree in Electronic Arts by the National University of Tres de Febrero and are also members of CEIArtE.

For more information about CEIArtE and UNTreF as well as a report on some of the aformentioned activities, please consult the following links:

UNTreF: http://www.untref.edu.ar/
CEIArtE: http://www.ceiarte.com.ar/
Amauta-CEIArtE, activities 2007: http://www.ceiarte.com.ar/?q=node/146

February 28, 2008
Second Audiovisual Research/Creation Workshop, in the Choquecancha - Lares community

The Amauta Project from the Bartolomé de las Casas Centre will be conducting a second Research/Creation Audiovisual Workshop in an Andean community from March 3 to 15, 2008. This time, a team from the Amauta Project will be working with young members from the Choquecancha community, in the district of Lares, Cusco, Peru. The Bartolomé de las Casas Centre is already developing another two projects in that area: Responsible Tourism and Amautas y Qullanas.

With this second workshop, the Amauta Project aims to deepen in its work with Andean peasant communities. A few years ago, the Amauta Project started screening films about the peasant reality in several communities. In the present stage, the Amauta Project is focusing on the interaction between the different ways of communication in traditional Andean spaces with the possibilities the new technologies are offering us today using audiovisual equipment.

The first Research/Creation Audiovisual Workshop took place in the community of Ccachin, also located in the district of Lares, Calca province, Cusco, in 2007. At that time, a team from the Amauta Project was working with members from the Ccachin community discussing on media communication and realizing four short films: two documentaries about the community and two video clips. All of them created by young people, between 13 and 17 years old, from the Ccachin community.

The need of working with the own image and the possibility of establishing audiovisual discourses from the own place, where one inhabits, makes these workshops a way to get closer and to know better the concerns and dreams of the young men and women from these communities. Worth mentioning the Amauta Project doesn’t want an isolated experience with these workshops, but we hope to work together with many Andean communities to support and collaborate in a process where people interested in further developing their creative potential through new media, will have this option and opportunity open in the future, having mutual understanding as one of the main objectives.

For more information on the Ccachin workshop, see the Education section of our website: http://www.amautaproject.org/english/educacion.htm

November 9, 2007
Audiovisual Research/Creation Workshop in the Ccachin - Lares community

The Amauta Project from the Bartolomé de las Casas Centre conducted its first workshop on audiovisual research/creation in an Andean community. Following Amauta Project original mandate about working together with Andean indigenous people, this important step was given in the Ccachin - Lares community, region of Cusco, between October 22 and November 3, 2007. During these two weeks, 20 young men and women of that community went through the process of audiovisual production while shared with the Amauta team aspects of the Andean culture.

This is the first research/creation audiovisual workshop the Amauta Project is developing in rural areas of Cusco but it is not the first activity it produces working with indigenous communities. Before, Amauta was translating and presenting films by Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjines in nine Andean communities. For some people that was the first time they saw a film. Precisely was in Ccachin, one of those nine communities, where now the research/creation workshop was held. All participants had he opportunity to be part of a process where experimentation, research, discussion and creation concerning audiovisual consumption and production integrating traditional as well as contemporary practices in the region where the leading keys.

The Amauta Project team welcomed the positive results of this mutual learning experience.

A comprehensive report on this workshop in Ccachin will be available soon in this web site, where Amauta will be also announcing the next activities to be held in several rural communities.

November 1, 2007
Cooperation with CEIArtE and artistic residency

Natalia Pajariño and Bernardo Piñero, both graduated in Electronic Arts at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTreF) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where in Cusco from May 19 to June 10, 2007, as part of the cooperation and exchange program being developed among the Amauta Project from Cusco and CEIArtE, Centro de Experimentación e Investigación en Artes Electrónicas (Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre) from the aforementioned university. During their residency in Cusco, Pajariño and Piñero were teaching a workshop on low-tech interactive art, compiling photographic and sound material for artistic works and presenting an artistic intervention at downtwon Cusco.

A brief report of the experience is available (in Spanish) at:
http://170.210.60.208/sitio_ceiarte/?q=node/146

For more information about Centro de Experimentación e Investigación en Artes Electrónicas (Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre) at UNTreF see: http://www.ceiarte.untref.edu.ar

October 22, 2007
Workshop on Interactive Media Works for Computers and Mobile Devices

From December 10 to 14, 2007, Patricio Dávila and David McIntosh will be teaching a workshop on "Programming with Processing to create interactive media works for computers and mobile devices" at Amauta, Cusco.

"Processing" is a computer language developed by the MIT Media Lab to simplify and facilitate the programming of digital media applications by visual artists. In this workshop, participants will learn how to design simple interactive applications using "Processing" (for PCs) and "Mobile Processing" (for cell phones).

Workshop participants will also learn how to develop applications using other communications technologies, such as Bluetooth, SMS and Wiimote, as elements in the interactive works they design. As participants develop their interaction production skills, they will also develop applications that respond to their personal and/or local context, taking into account their immediate technological possibilities.

The Director of the workshop is Patricio Dávila, an interactive media artist and researcher, lecturer in Design at the Ontario College of Art & Design, and Masters candidate at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. As well, Dr. David McIntosh, interactive cell phone game designer and Professor of Media Studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, Canada, will animate the participatory and contextual design portion of the workshop.

August 6, 2007
Isuma y Artcirq in Amauta

During their brief stay in Cusco, Guillaume Saladin and Karine Delzors de Artcirq (http://www.artcirq.org) were able to speak with researchers of the Centro Bartolome de las Casas and Amauta Project, and share experiences about the work of producer Isuma (http://www.isuma.ca/) with the Inuit communities living near the North Pole.
On the night of August 6th a series of Isuma productions were projected in the CBC auditorium.

May 14, 2007
Amauta and Hexagram, the Canadian interuniversity consortium in media arts and technologies, signed an agreement.

The Amauta Project and El Centro Bartolome de las Casas and the Canadian institute of research and development in Arts Hexagram have signed, on the past May 14th, an agreement which will allow them to organize, in a collective manner, activities such as: conferences, workshops, residences and projects in research and development about topics of common interests.

This international agreement it is framed within the program of activities of the Amauta project, with the objective of supporting artistic research and development with new technologies in the Cusco region.

This is a new step hoped to serve as an impulse and motivation for local artists. With this in mind the laboratory of Amauta is opened to all those who wish to propose new projects in artistic research and development, both in the audiovisual and sonorous field, as well as in the field of media arts.

For details about the agreement and information about Hexagram, visit the following website:

http://www.hexagram.org/