Discover the Project

What is it about?

This project focuses on the development of a transmedia digital book that brings together narrative, technology, and community knowledge to tell the story of Emilia, a teenager who travels to San Basilio de Palenque after losing her parents in a fire caused by unsafe household energy practices.

Objective

The initiative aims not only to reconstruct the protagonist’s identity through her connection to her family’s Afro-Indigenous roots, but also to promote a critical understanding of electrical risks from a culturally grounded perspective. To achieve this, the project incorporated a qualitative research and co-creation process with the Palenquero community, which included field visits to validate narrative, aesthetic, and symbolic elements from the local worldview. The team conducted interviews with primary sources, exploratory workshops, community walks, and on-site sound recordings used for musical composition and multimedia design.

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Process

Creation of the Work

The development of the interactive piece began with the intention of creating a tangible board that would allow users to discover narrative fragments not included in the original digital book, specifically, the events of the fire that motivated Emilia’s first trip to San Basilio de Palenque.

Conceived as a narrative prequel, this piece offers three different perspectives on the event, articulated through characters and physical objects that, when placed on the board’s surface, activate scenes, memories, and technical explanations.

Scriptwriting:

The creative process began with the drafting of a detailed script that established the interaction flow between tokens, characters, and narrative sequences. Based on this script, a storyboard was created to define each animation, visual transition, and illustration, ensuring aesthetic coherence with La Chispa de Emilia’s visual universe.

Construction of the interactive table:

Designed as a modular, fully assemblable system, the device consists of a rectangular prism with a frosted acrylic top surface, beneath which a backlighting matrix brings the board to life. Inside the prism, a camera is positioned facing the surface, responsible for identifying the objects placed by users.

Technical system:

The system is based on reacTIVision, an open-source computer vision framework that enables fast and robust tracking of fiducial markers attached to physical objects. Each token was programmed in Processing, allowing specific interactions between characters and narrative elements based on the codes detected by the camera.

Physical objects:

The pieces were digitally modeled using parametric software, 3D-printed in PLA, and then hand-painted to preserve the original artistic intent. The stories activated by each character reconstruct possible scenarios from the day of the fire through animations created in After Effects, revealing not only emotional dimensions but also evidence of unsafe household energy practices.

Writing process

The writing process began with the formulation of the central conflict that gave rise to Emilia’s universe: a girl from Malambo who loses her parents in a fire caused by an electrical accident. From there, we focused on designing and implementing a working methodology capable of bringing together the diverse disciplinary and creative perspectives of all members of the research team. With these collected and systematized inputs, a draft was produced that reflected the key collective decisions: the diary format, the end-of-year holiday timeframe, the locations in Palenque that Emilia would visit, and the professions of the other characters.

Finally, the draft was presented to school students in San Basilio de Palenque with the intention of incorporating their opinions, critiques, and suggestions during a co-creation workshop. This workshop involved reviewing the draft text, discussing the narrative universe, and generating new textual materials, allowing the pedagogical component to be incorporated into the narrative structure.

Musical process

The project’s musical proposal was built around a structure of thematic sound atmospheres designed to adapt fluidly to different types of narrative scenes without relying on a completely separate track for each chapter. The goal was to create an immersive environment that would enhance the experience of the interactive story through the use of soundscapes and instrumental, voice-free music.

Audio 1La Chispa de Emilia

00:00 / 01:15

Audio 2La Chispa de Emilia

00:00 / 01:03

To achieve this, a hybrid approach was developed that combines rhythmic and timbral elements of Colombian Afro-Caribbean folklore—particularly traditional genres such as bullerengue, cumbia, tambora, chalupa, berroche, chandé, pajarito, and fandango—with contemporary techniques of digital manipulation and cinematic sound design. This fusion made it possible to craft a unique sonic language that evokes the ancestral and the local roots of Palenque’s musical traditions, while also engaging with modern aesthetics.

The resulting musical pieces are incidental and fully loopable, designed to accompany the narrative without interrupting it, providing emotional continuity and atmospheric variation. The instrumentation focused on characteristic timbres such as the drum family (alegre, llamador, tambora), gaita or flauta de millo, marímbula, guache, maracas, and palo de agua, integrated with samplers, synthesizers, and digital processing techniques that expanded the expressive possibilities of traditional sounds.

Creative process

Designing La Chispa de Emilia was a process filled with color, roots, and personality. To create its visual identity, the Palenque, Wayuu, and Malambera cultures were used as references, along with elements from its own history. From there, ten characters that make up Emilia’s family were created, each designed to reflect their personality, age, hobbies, and the essence of the traditions surrounding them.

The creative process was a constant exploration: first, references were gathered, then sketches were made outlining the anatomy, details were refined, the lines were drawn, and finally, color was applied. Much of the inspiration came from a trip to Palenque, with its earthy brown tones, the colorful facades, and the energy of the place. Emblematic elements of the region were also incorporated, such as the picós (sound systems) of Malambo and the traditional Wayuu bags. Overall, this journey allowed us to build an authentic, warm visual identity deeply connected to Emilia's origins and her spark.

Team

Paola Harris

Andrea Cancino

Miguel Jimeno

Heidy Robles

José Vargas

Oscar Campo

Johan De La Rosa

José Soto

Isabella Pérez

Karen Villalba

Ingrid Oliveros

Reiny Reyes

Adriana Arango