Traditional Culture and Cutting-Edge Technology: Discovering Andean and Amazonian Worldviews Through Digital Interactive Features

Cartoon Room

Our display showcases innovative approaches to understanding Andean and Amazonian worldviews by way of a series of student-produced digital interactive features including digital story maps, 3-dimensional digital models of indigenous artwork, digital storytelling, soundcloud recordings and a virtual reality environment based on Ohio State’s Andean and Amazonian cultural artifact collection.

The Hidden Life of Things: Andean and Amazonian Cultural Artifacts and the Stories They Tell is a traveling pop-up exhibit that returns to The Ohio State University for the Innovate conference. The exhibit includes interactive features that allow viewers to listen to Andean music, hear Quechua poetry and Andean myths, access resources online, explore an interactive digital cultural map, and manipulate 3-D digital models of cultural artifacts.

A virtual reality experience titled Sumac Puringashpa–Walking the Meaningful Path: Coming and Going in Andean and Amazonian Worldviews is an interdisciplinary project that encourages users to experience and engage with Andean and Amazonian ways of looking at and conceiving of the world by way of user-interactive interfaces such as musical instruments (Andean panpipes), a shaman’s seat of power (Amazonian bancu), and various cultural artifacts.

Presenters:

Michelle Wibbelsman

Associate Professor

Spanish and Portuguese

The Ohio State University

wibbelsman.1@osu.edu

Michelle Wibbelsman is Associate Professor of Latin American indigenous cultures, ethnographic studies and ethnomusicology in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The Ohio State University. She holds courtesy faculty appointments in the School of Music and the Department of Anthropology. Dr. Wibbelsman specializes in the expressive culture of indigenous peoples of the Andean highlands. She has conducted fieldwork in her native country of Ecuador since 1995. She is the author of Ritual Encounters: Otavalan Modern and Mythic Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), a critical ethnography that engages topics of Otavalan religion and ritual; musical expression; public festivals; history, myth and memory; performance and politics; aesthetics and power; intra- and inter-ethnic conflict; ritual violence; and transnational migration. She has also published on topics of transnational music making, performance and politics. She is Faculty Curator of the Andean and Amazonian Cultural Artifact Collection at Ohio State and Director of the OSU Andean Music Ensemble. In 2017 Dr. Wibbelsman served as Co-Director and Lead Teacher for the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad program for K-12 teachers, “Teaching the Andes: Redefining the Common Good and Reclaiming the Public Square.” Dr. Wibbelsman is Winner of the 2017 Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) Teaching Award for Junior Faculty. Her current research centers on indigenous transnational migration, diaspora, and cosmopolitanism.

Norah Zuniga Shaw

Professor

Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design

The Ohio State University

zuniga-shaw.1@osu.edu

Since 2004, Norah Zuniga Shaw has been Director for Dance and Technology at The Ohio State University Department of Dance and Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) where she is a Professor and teaches courses in interdisciplinary research and composition, intermedia theater, critical theories of the body, embodied digital literacy, and dance improvisation. Zuniga Shaw is also Principal Investigator for the Collaboration for Humane Technologies.

Abigail Ayers

Graduate Student / Research Associate

Advanced Computing Center for Arts & Design

The Ohio State University

ayers.224@osu.edu

Abigail Ayers is now a second-year MFA student in the Design Department at The Ohio State University. Working within the Digital Animation and Interactive Media track, she is interested in exploring how virtual and augmented reality can be combined with game principles for educational purposes. Abigail currently works as a Graduate Research Associate at the Advanced Computing Center for Arts & Design (ACCAD).

Traditional Culture and Cutting-Edge Technology: Discovering Andean and Amazonian Worldviews Through Digital Interactive Features

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