XV SIGraDi Conference "Augmented Culture"

The XV SIGraDi conference will take place November 16th through 18th 2011 in Santa Fe, Argentina. It is organized by the School of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning (Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo) of the Universidad Nacional del Litoral through its Center of Informatics and Design, CID. After eight years SIGraDi returns to Argentina, revisiting the vision and arguments shaping its previous meetings there.

Conference Theme

“Augmented Culture” talks about a combination of interdependent social and technological meanings in a complex, multiple, interactive and interconnected context. It acknowledges that a new social and cultural paradigm is being developed as the old barriers of time, space and language are ruptured and transcended.

In our knowledge-based civilization, we inhabit interconnected societies where new relational forms are configured. Additionally, cultural expressions have been qualitatively augmented starting from their integration with information and communication technologies, which have dramatically enhanced not only their creative and reflective processes, but also the realization and construction of cultural objects.

In this sense, an “Augmented Culture” compels us to investigate the wide and complex spectrum of the variables that express the interdisciplinary, collective and participative constructions of our present age, so strongly related to visual culture, information culture and interface culture.

Thus, we consider it necessary to concentrate, to expand, to spread and to share exploratory, descriptive or explanatory experiences and productions of such phenomena. The attempt is to define a multidimensional theoretical framework that while recognizing today’s state-of-the-art and tendencies, it provides us with a critical viewpoint.