What was your academic path before coming to the Web Science DTC 4 year MSc/PhD programme?
I studied Graphic Design in Universidad Tecnologica de Mexico in Mexico City. After that I did my first postgraduate degree in Creative Visualization, a specialty in marketing and advertising with Universidad de la Comunicacion, this is one of the main universities in Mexico to study advertising. During this time I started doing research in which I received funding from CASIAD where I studied the anthropology, design and media impact of Mexican Wrestling and Mexican Wrestling Masks. I published several papers presenting my findings of this topic. I later on received an MA in Interactive Production in which I produced an installation in collaboration with some archaeologists from University of Southampton. I will be presenting this project on the next CAA 2012.
Why did you choose Web Science?
Since early stages of my career, I focused on the Anthropological and Sociological aspects of design. I have been very interested of how design has been shaping our everyday life. I believe Web Science provides the platform of collaborative and interdisciplinary approach needed to engage these types of topics.
As a graphic designer I can utilize the tools of mass media communication and blend them with the socio-technological tools from Web Science.
What does the Web mean to you?
The Web as difficult as it is to define it changes my perception of it depending of what I am looking for. Sometimes behaves as a mega-mass media communication tool, sometimes it acts as an interconnection of data visualized through the users or interfaces. The Web now is an important technology that is shaping the way we live, interact and especially the way the world will be in the future.
Best experience of the course so far?
My best experience so far is the motivation that most of the students and teachers have towards researching and making apportions to Web Science. It is amazing how I have managed to meet so many professionals in a single space.
What Research Areas are you interested in for your MSc/PhD?
Within the DTC in Web Science I am very interested in areas involving visual communication, anthropology, archaeology, design theory, museum studies and heritage.
One of my main interests is to open a collaborative collection for small museums. An intent to give smaller museums access to big museum collections. The process will involve not only the collaboration process and management but also the curating process. The use of semantic web when the curating process is generated for an exhibition artefact will change the way those objects are visualized and interpreted. This will generate some king of semantic curating methodology.
Within museums we are trying to materialize values and trying to give meaning to objects. For this reason museums within cultural theory are public spaces in which their values and the culture creation is always under debate.
Many artefacts tend to change meaning depending on the context where they are presented. Some other objects will have a completely different meaning depending on the person in charge of curating the object. What this project will intend to do is to provide a universal and multicultural view of the object that is presented in which the audience or viewer can be able to have a different learning approach or choose his learning approach provided by the multi-interpreted artefact.
Before photography, multimedia and all the new technologies, the object by itself have been the way to present the culture or places, which they came from. For the reason I think that, the object presented should contain enough information to communicate or represent the specific qualities of a culture. When the object is unique, it will be a challenge to transmit the embedded information to a replica that could be presented somewhere else. The use of modern manufacture technology and prototype making can assist with this process. However, it will be the correct adaptation of the object and its environment what will be able to make the correct communication to the audience possible.
This type of project can work also with the methodology for digital heritage and the way new and old findings are being stored or curated.
The project can involve disciplines from Sociology, Graphic Design, Museum Studies, Archaeology, Anthropology, Multimedia, Computer Science, Management, Fine Art and Education among others. Each of these disciplines will be tied to each other to provide the best methodological approach.
I believe that this will bring a very positive spin to the culture of the world. I intend to make museum information and objects more accessible. This way smaller museums can be able to survive modern times in which culture seems to be less and less important. It will be able to connect different cultures in a single space or even allow to experience other cultures in your own town.
This is just the beginning of an idea that I believe it will have endless opportunities and that is capable of evolving according to the needs of the population. The same way people are connected to multiple sources of information, there is no reason why culture should be from an unidirectional source. There is a need of reflection of the information that is provided or even question why the information is provided in that specific way.
Work experience/placements:
Most of my work has been in the industry. As a Graphic Designer I have worked with several companies and in several countries including Colombia, United States, Spain, United Kingdom and Mexico.
My last years in the industry, I started focusing and specializing in Post-production for television. I became an authorized Avid editor with a great expertise in colour correction and colourization. I worked in the United States as a Director of Post-production for Studio 22. A year after I travelled to Mexico City in which I worked as a freelance post-producer for several production companies.
It was later that I became the Art & Design director for ZF Trading in Mexico, a transnational company based in Germany. I used to be in charge of all the visual communication for the five brands that contain ZF Trading for the whole Mexico. During this same year I worked with Nickelodeon in the post-production department in some episodes of the Skimoa Latin American television show.
When I arrived in the United Kingdom I worked as an associate lecturer for University of Southampton with Archaeological Computing in which I presented multimedia technologies. Later on, I moved to Southampton Solent University as a Technical Instructor in Electronic Origination in which I covered the areas of Multimedia, Graphic Image Making, Graphic Design, Photography and 3D CAD design among others.
I am currently a full time student with the Web ScienceDTC and an Associate Lecturer for two hours a week with Southampton Solent University.
What are your Career ambitions?
Spending some time in the industry, I have fallen in love with the academic environment and the challenges of research. I tend to keep on the line of socio cultural phenomena and the heritage sector including museums and curating processes.
Perhaps find a way to bring all my commercial skills into an academic world in which I hope to provide a good balance of disciplines and skills.