Digital Dialectic: Forging New Paths of Inquiry in the Humanities

FAIN: HD-51506-12

National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation (Albuquerque, NM 87102-4508)
Shelle Sanchez (Project Director: October 2011 to April 2014)

The development of software and related curricula to allow for the in-depth examination and analysis of visual humanities content within both immersive digital dome and web-based environments. The project will use as a model Mundos de Mestizaje, a contemporary fresco that highlights Hispanic history and cultural dialog.

Digital Dialectic empowers humanities education with technology that sparks deeper contextual understanding of cultural artifacts and illuminates the multicultural nature of the humanities. Frederico Vigil's fresco, Mundos de Mestizaje, allegorically depicts 3000 years of Hispanic history, focusing on cross-cultural exchange of ideas. NHCC and ARTS Lab will create an interactive software application allowing users to explore the fresco, and through educational information embedded in the imagery, discover the dynamic nature of the humanities and their connection to Hispanidad. The asset will deploy on 2 interactive platforms: a digital dome presentation and a web-based viewer. The immersive dome piece will allow widespread audiences to view the fresco at actual scale and dive into details with high-resolution magnification; it will be distributed nationally and internationally to museums with fulldome theaters. The web-based viewer will allow self-guided exploration of the fresco.