ARMONÍA Music for Inclusion
Concept and design development of an online platform
for the inclusion in post-conflict Colombia
Media Art and Design (M.F.A.)
Bauhaus Universität Weimar - September 2017
First advisor: Michael Markert
Second advisor: Jason M. Reizner
Project Focus
September 2016 will be remembered as one of Colombians milestones. After 4 years of negotiation between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and FARC (a guerrilla group that has its origins in the year 1960 and started as a political opposing movement) both parties have signed a peace treaty that intends to end violence and drug trafficking. The treaty hopes to reappear victims, encourage inclusion of ex combatants into society; diminish war related issues like abductions, rape, torture and murder. The country has suffered a 50-year-old war with different guerrilla groups, this conflict has affected all Colombian citizens directly or indirectly. According to the Governments Victim Unit (Unidad de Víctimas) there are more than 9,5 million reported cases of violence since 1985, most of cases will never be reporter officially. After the peace treaty, the reconstruction of a post-conflict Colombia starts. Through out history, countries with similar violent events have constructed a new paradigm that changed their course in history; through the analysis of these cases the project intends to provide a cultural solution. Using music, arts and new media as a platform for communication, development and inclusion.
This master thesis is focused on the concept and design development of a online platform for a program that stimulates inclusion for Colombian ex guerrilla group members through musical learning. The platform will serve as an information site for the Project that is being developed in Colombia and will be a bridge between the protagonists of the conflict and people outside of it. The result aims to become an example for socially responsible design focused on cultural and social development.
“Through the learning of arts and/or music the Project looks to accomplish the recognition of individuals and their diversity to explore their potencial and help them through the inclusion process in the post- conflict Colombian society.”
- Antonio Suárez Albarracín (Project Leader)
The conception and development of the project in total will be lead on by the Colombian Philharmonic Foundation, since its creation in 1966 the institution has been responsible for many cultural movements and projects involving Colombian culture. Originally the project is named ‘Música para la paz’ (Music for peace) and its main objective is to make visible the artistic qualities inside of the ex guerrilla groups and use musical learning as a bridge in the dialogue and the process of inclusion. The project looks to achieve the creation and guidance of three specific musical groups: a philharmonic orchestra, a philharmonic band and a chorus, additionally they look to enhance existing groups of traditional Colombian music like: Salsa, Vallenato, Cumbia, and others that may already exist in the organization. The results of the project will be seen in an inaugural concert and in national or international concerts which will be arranged by the project manager. Resources for the project have been achieved by the head of the project, their aim is to access the private sector as well as the public one to obtain diverse support.
Using the actual organizational territorial system that resulted in the peace agreements ‘Las zonas veredales’, the project will organize and intensive intervention with music teachers. For the first year, the project is organized in four stages. Stage one compromises the selection process of the participants and the teachers and continues with the first approach of musical instruction. Stage two involves the participants getting the instruments and their specific classes for each, later the instructors will start the process of grouping the participants according to their inclinations and abilities. The third stage will result in the inaugural concert and the forth and final stage will be the continuous musical instruction.
Naming
Armonía’ (Harmony) evokes two main parts of the project, the musical aspect and the inclusion objective. One of the main goals is to help build a harmonic society through the usage of arts and cultural development, teaching music to vulnerable group of citizens and using cultural similarities to humanize them. The word has a sound similarity in multiple languages: Armonía - Spanish, Armonia - Italian, Harmonia - Portuguese, Harmony - English and Harmonie - German and French. This will help with the understanding of the project not
only in Spanish speaking countries.
Logo
The starting point is a San Serif typography called HammersmithOne, part of google fonts and a Open Font License (OFL)(Google 2017). Three of the letters where modified to enhance the uniqueness of the brand, adding part of a symbol used in the rest of the communication. The contour of a flying flag, alludes to the identifier of a country, freedom, and harmonic movement of cloth material in the wind. The use of the modifier in the letter A is used as a predominant visual identifier, not only because of its repetitive character but because it encapsulates the word and the logotype. The accent in the letter I is also made by the positioning of the absent figure. The flag symbol is only seen in the negative space between the letters and their expected figure.
Web Design
The website design is a direct response to a missing digital presence for the project in Colombia. The site has three fundamental objectives that compliment the project: informational, blog, and interactive.
Informational: It will serve as a platform where users can get information about the inclusion process through the project, the process, the members of the group, and the people leading the development.
Blog: Inspired on blog sites a selection of participants from the project will share their stories and development through video, interviews, photographs or letters. Users will be able to share their personal stories and also to respond to the stories of others, helping people not affected directly by the conflict understand the ramifications of violence.
Interactive creation: Starting with the introduction to simple traditional Colombian rhythms users will be able to create above those new short rhythmical loops. Later the program will randomly select loops made by other users to create short piece of music. These shorts examples from users will be available to listen to on a player that maintains its presence on the entire website.
Interaction
The interaction of the project is inspired on the Surrealists ‘cadavre exquis’ (exquisite corpse). The drawing game was played among a group, a paper was folded in equal parts as the number of members in the group; later, the first participant drew the equivalent of a head, the second shoulders, the third a body, and so on. The result is a collaborative drawing that is composed by different styles and meanings (Admowicz, 1998). In music composition, a teacher inspired by the same game generated a learning technique for young composers to interact and inspire each other. Juan María Solare, uses a similar exercise with students that have already some knowledge in rhythm, composition, and melody. Each participant would write a musical part for their instrument which they can interpreted, later the participants would create a sheet of music together and each fragment can be repeated as much as is necessary. In his paper published in 2010, he explains how this mechanism helps composers and directors to create in groups and enrich their experience as musicians (Solare 2010).
Based in this group creation game, the platform looks to create a community interested in learning and the exploring Colombian traditional rhythms. Exploring four rhythms traditionally linked with Colombian culture: salsa, cumbia, porro, vallenato; users can interact changing beats and creating a small sample loop. A simple interface with ‘on and off’ instruments represented in the four main color palette is played by a loop which you can later record and share with other users. If they decide to record their rhythmic loop the sample will be stored in a data base, later there will be part of the playlist available in all pages of the site.
IMPORTANT: Taking into account that this is an ongoing project, legal ramifications and time aspects have to be acknowledge. The proposal for esthetics in the project include a proposal for the photographical style for the documentation of the process. The design proposes the usage of portraits with similar style as renewed photographer Richard Avedon. They will be replaced when the actual photos from the team in Colombia are released.
Please let me know what do you think about this project in the comments below.
Thank you for your support and appreciations!
