A total of nine innovative projects, which encourage internal interaction and the creation of synergies, will be able to enjoy a period of residence during this 2022-2023 academic year in the Tallers area, a space dedicated to knowledge management and cultural production on the UPF Poblenou campus, within the framework of the “En Residència” incubation programme.

Six of the selected projects (Albert.DATA: Slowly Fading into Data, Plató 3, The Hist, Pong Fest, SomBCN and Storydata) are new and will participate for the first time in the programme, while the remaining three (Economèdia, GoGreen and Nelumbo) started to be developed during the past year and will be prolonging their stay.

The projects participating in this third call of the programme revolve around such diverse cultural proposals as different facets of video games, a community theatre play, the sale of online tickets using blockchain technology, a video and current affairs streaming platform, global communication services, a transmedia project, and a tokenized app.

The decision of the call #EnResidenciaTalleres 2022-2023, published in mid-July, gave the green light to hosting these projects with a marked innovative character and with a potential for practical application, driven by social partners, creators, researchers and entrepreneurs, both from within and without the UPF University community.

The evaluation committee, chaired by Jordi Balló, director of the Department of Communication, who selected the six new projects from a total of fourteen proposals submitted, in addition to deciding on the continuity of a further three, has particularly valued their transversality, interdisciplinarity, feasibility and ability to interact with other initiatives.

This programme, under the framework of the transformation of the Tallers area of the Poblenou campus proposed by EDvolution, UPF’s Common Educational Model, aims to provide participants with the tools and resources needed to foster their talents in collaboration with the university community.

This year’s six new “En Residència” projects

“Albert.DATA:Slowly Fading into Data” is an experimental project for the design and organization of an audiovisual performance in the video game environment. The proposal will work on the design and organization of a cultural event in the city of Barcelona, to present the Première of the Live A/V Performance of the project Slowly Fading into Data. The intention of this event is to create synergies between actors in the city’s creative and cultural sector that transcend the world of the university and are committed to innovative formats in the cultural industry. It was presented by Albert Barqué-Duran, a UPF alumni in Business Management and Administration, artist and researcher in creative technologies and digital art, with Sergi Jordà, a professor at the DTIC, as his mentor.

“Plató 3” is a documentary arising from a final year project by five UPF students. This feature documentary is about a group of young people from Puigverd in Lleida who, years after the closure of the village pub, their only meeting place, set out to stage a community theatre play. Its aim is to invite people to debate and question stigmas rooted in young people from rural areas and to reappraise the village as a space for developing art and creation. It was presented by Lluïsa Puig Molina, UPF alumni of Audiovisual Communication, accompanied by Maria Borrell, Clara Badia and Daniel Arboleda.

“The Hist” is a current affairs video/news streaming platform for the exclusive consumption of current affairs. Its purpose is to adapt current affairs and news to new consumer trends, in addition to eliminating disinformation and political manipulation. It thus presents a space of communication in which the content is prepared by journalists independently, free from any political influence. It was presented by Paloma Rodiles, a student of Journalism and Humanities, accompanied by Oriol Trigo and Ari Daniele, with Eva Domínguez, a professor with the Department of Communication, as her mentor.

“Pong Fest” consists of an informative and pedagogical video game on the culture of the video game, the result of the final year project by Cesc Grau, a UPF alumni of Audiovisual Communication. It is a computer-designed point-and-click graphic adventure that follows a historical moment in video game culture: the creation of Pong. The game puts us in the shoes of Allan Corn, the engineer and designer of the video game “Pong”, on his first day in Atari, the company that developed it.

“SomBCN” is the first online show ticketing service to implement blockchain technology. The project was presented by Víctor Ferrer Franco, an engineer in Audiovisual Systems and a fourth-year student of Telecommunications Network Engineering, accompanied by Víctor Aguado and Xavier Garcia, and mentored by Vanesa Daza (DTIC-UPF) and Xavier Simón (UPC). The aim is to streamline the processes whereby artists and the people involved in putting on shows are paid, eliminate intermediaries, cut costs and reduce ticket prices through cost savings.

“Storydata” is a global communication service targeting organizations in general that wish to transform a set of data into a communicative account in all available formats. The project was presented by Elisa Vivas Soto, a UPF Journalism alumni who is the co-founder and CEO of Storydata, accompanied by Carina Bellver, Ignasi López and Oriol Díez.

The three projects prolonging their stay

 “Economèdia” is a transmedia project to produce informative audiovisual content in the fields of the economy and society. It was presented by Esther Motjer, holder of a master’s degree in Scientific, Medical and Environmental Communication from BSM-UPF, together with Ricard Grèbol, Pol Guillaumes and Xavier Blanco, with Patricia Martínez del Hoyo, a UPF Humanities alumni and transmedia creative director, as mentor.

“GoGreen” is a tokenized app (replaces sensitive data with a unique identifying code) to encourage the use of sustainable infrastructure. It rewards good behaviour through a system of incentives to foment positive dynamics among the citizenry, promoting more sustainable urban mobility. It was presented by Bruno Peral, an ELISAVA alumni, together with Philippe Engels, and as mentors Ricardo Cevallos, a UPF-BSM alumni, and Xavier Simó, a UPC alumni and founder of Inlea Holdings.

“Nelumbo” is a project to develop an emerging narrative video game, the product of a final degree project in Audiovisual Communication, in collaboration with Computer Engineering. The premise places Nelumbo in a small solar system where, due to a strange disease (which gives the game its name), people are losing their memory. It was presented by Albert del Arco, a UPF Audiovisual Communication alumni, together with other UPF alumni Erich Lerbs, Laura Sinici and the student Marta Freixas.

An incubation programme to introduce cultural production to the University

“En Residència” is an incubation programme addressing current students, undergraduate students, master’s or doctoral degree students and other members of the UPF community that aims to introduce cultural production to the University. The programme, which currently has more than thirty residents, was born with the desire to promote a crossroads of experiences between the university community and the cultural and social industries through projects in the fields of cultural, social or artistic innovation, with a practical application.

The objective is to invite these agents to spend a period of residence at UPF, for ten and a half months, extendable by a further ten and a half months, in which they will have at their disposal the services and resources necessary to develop their talent in collaboration with the university community. Thus, “En Residència” enables generating avenues of mutual knowledge between creators, teachers and researchers and students with, for example, collaborations with research lines or projects in development, or with UPF master’s or doctoral degree projects.

As a requirement to take part, some team members must have or have had a link with the UPF, whether as current students, bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree alumni and other profiles.