This paper presents an analysis of the material produced during the “Digital Narratives for community participation on coastal ecosystem management” workshops held in Garapuá, Brazil and Aguiño, Spain (http://narrativas.ecoarte.info/). It is a reflection on the themes and contents identified and collected by the teenagers. Alongside our analysis tries to facilitate the exploration of the materials to users and to identify topics and problems relevant to the participants, their communities and territories. Here, art and ecology get together to produce a visual and conceptual narrative of these peoples’ lives, culture, economy, religion, territories, landscape and so on. The workshops were facilitated by a group of artists and scientists that worked together to get a picture of these two places and see their connections, similarities and discrepancies.

1. Digital Narratives
Data Visualization and eco-media content.
Media Art produced at Digital Narratives workshops
Karla Brunet
www.karlabru.net
Juan Freire
www.juanfreire.net
ISEA 2011/Istanbul

2. Digital Narratives
Digital Narratives for community participation
on coastal ecosystem management
Workshops
Garapuá, Brazil
Aguiño, Spain
(http://narrativas.ecoarte.info/).

3. Digital Narratives
Garapuá, Bahia, Brazil
(isolated community)

4. Digital Narratives
Aguiño, Galicia Spain
(mix of rural and urban)

5. Digital Narratives
• Collaborative
• Documentation of the process
• low tech, free software, easy to use, DIY

6. Digital Narratives
Narrative media: video, photo, audio, text, map
(4 groups x 4 teenagers x 2 facilitators)

7. Digital Narratives
Subject decision meeting

8. Digital Narratives
Open projections on the streets

9. Digital Narratives
Editing Software (during the workshops)
• Kino & Cinelerra (video)
• Gimp & F-Spot (photo)
• Audicity (audio)
• gvSIG develop EasySIG (simpler version of gvSIG)
& Google Earth (map)
• OpenOffice (text)
Post production (later at UFBA)
The above software plus Final Cut, Ligthroom and Impure

10. Digital Narratives
• tagging and archiving:
Vimeo, Flickr, Archive.org, Google Maps

11. Digital Narratives
Aesthetical analysis
•How they perceived the place (before and after the workshop)
Allen Carlson (2000) ) The aesthetics of natural environments
landscape appreciation on environmental aesthetics and descriptions modes
•formal and ordinary description
•factual description
•imaginative description
Landscape – Memory, identity, contestation

21. Digital Narratives
Aesthetical analysis
• Garapuá: teenagers had no previous knowledge on using the
cameras, mp3 recorders and GPS
• Aguiño: teenager were already used to the technology.
•there was a graphical aesthetics concern to the photos.
• images produced in Brazil had a stronger narrative content and the
ones done in Spain were more landscape contemplation better
graphical pieces.
•Garapuá, there was no experimentation with the audio,
•Aguiño they experimented a lot with the audio, they created and
discovered unnoticed sounds of the place. An interesting example is
an orchestra that they created on a shipyard, just with the sounds of
the machines.

29. Digital Narratives
Ecological analysis
Ecosystems are characterized by a series of “tangible objects”
(physical and biological components) and intangible processes that
connect the different objects (i.e., river runoff or coastal currents,
coastal fertilization, trophic cascades…) (Mann & Lazier, 2005) and
the human experience of objects and processes gives rise to the
landscape (Turner et al., 2001).

30. Digital Narratives
Garapuá:
1)turismo / lazer
2)infra-estrutura
3)atividades econômicas
(especialmente pesca)
4)histórias de vida
5)Ecossistema
6)propriedade da terra

31. Digital Narratives
Aguiño:
1)Paisagem
2)Pesca
3)histórias de vida
4)identidade cultural

32. Digital Narratives
Ecological analysis
• ecological literacies are basic
• only the more symbolic and evident “objects” are recognized
• a static view of the landscape.
Developing a comprehensive ecological literacy arises as a key
objective to empower the community and develop their ability to
influence decision-making in environmental management (i.e.,
territory planning, pollution control, fishery management).

33. Digital Narratives
Visualization and some conclusions
• exhibition in the community
• online posting
• Datanet (Klanten, Bourquin et al., 2008), tag relationship with
Impure software. This visualization gave us a better perspective of
what was important to them, about their location, environment and
identity.
• longer workshop/more time for post-production, tagging, editing…

58. Digital Narratives
Thank you
email@karlabru.net
twitter @ksbrunet