Special Projects

App Arquitecturas de la memoria (Memory Architectures AR APP)

Recognizing sound as a source of intangible cultural heritage, this project proposes the creation of an augmented reality app by geolocation that links different audios on memory to specific places in the public space. The app configures an interactive cartography in which, through the smartphone, you can access geolocated audios that accompany the walk through the town.

During your stay or tour of the town, the app records the places through which you pass and offers audios linked to those places, stories told by the inhabitants themselves.

The app presents an aesthetic and usability close to the video game. Gamification is a technique by which the contents are structured through experiences close to the game to maintain motivation and capture the attention of children and adolescents. The inspiration of this app is Pokemon Go, in which the user goes out to the city to hunt Pokemons. In Arquitecturas de la Memoria, the adolescent will use the same geolocation technology to “hunt” the memories of his community linked to the public space.

It builds an intergenerational meeting space. The stories and memory are held by our elders, and we intend that the use of new technologies serve to facilitate these memories can be transmitted to the new generations. That transmission was formerly done orally and face to face. But contemporary life has led to fewer and fewer opportunities for informal and dialogic relationships between people of different ages. For this reason the app uses audio, as a way to recover that orality that gave continuity to the collective memory in previous generations. In addition, the fact of working with audio allows us to keep our eyes on the urban landscape. It is the difference between interposing an image between you and the world, or listening to a voice that accompanies you while your eyes discover the environment. A new way of looking at the urban landscape through sounds.

• Country: Spain
• Org. Responsible: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
• Location: Garrovillas de Alconétar, Leganés, Madrid and others
• Start date: 1 April 2020
• End date: 31 December 2020
• Contact person: Alfredo Miralles
• Contact email: alfredo.miralles@uc3m.es
• URL: https://www.uc3m.es/cultura/en/eventos-culturales