Cultura Digital integrates the Project BRA/04/051 – United Nations Development Program and Government of Brazil/ Ministry of Culture, “Projeto Cultura Viva/ Pontos de Cultura”. The initiative, undertaken in 2003, partnered with more than 500 groups of free culture and NGO’s, to give emphasis to the participation of civil society in the elaboration and execution of a public policy of culture and digital inclusion.
Vanessa Santos, among other researchers and artists, implemented the actions planed by the project, through audiovisual practices based on the freedom of production, access, and exchange of information and communication technology skills. They ministered training workshops in different cities of Brazil, in events called “Free Knowledge Meetings”: a methodology of technical initiation that obtained international recognition.
The team played a strategic role in stimulating autonomy, self-management and protagonism of these groups. To achieve so, they foster collaborative artistic production, articulate the formation of socio-technical networks, facilitate the appropriation of multimedia tools and free software.
Cultura Digital developed and maintained “Conversê” environment, a public discussion forum and social network; “Mapsys”, an aggregator of cultural information of public interest.
The team actively participate in “Estudio Livre”, an open source collaborative community on the Internet, sharing tutorials for multimedia production with free software as well as audio, video, and graphic content published and let available for remix on the platform.
Vanessa Santos 