SONAR
Sonar is a web‑based audiovisual interactive artwork, which employs a rule‑based system to generate multimodal artifacts. A collection of testimonies (poems, diary entries, interviews) from several writers describing the Carnation Revolution, and the end of a dictatorship, is used as the source text of this generative work.
As is often the case with technology, a sonar is a surveillance and detection technique initially developed for military purposes. In this work, however, similar devices will be used to track testimonies about the revolution which took place on the 25th April 1974 in Portugal. This sonar detects markers which become temporarily highlighted (in the form of geo-referenced markers) during the scanning sonar’s 360° sweep in a submerged world. A multimodal representation combining typographic and visual elements, as well as a sound file containing the testimony, is then triggered by the user. In order to create this work, a thorough research was conducted to recover the words of several writers and artists who have witnessed this period of change. Sonar not only allows us to preserve the memory of an important moment in the history of Portugal, but also demonstrates how digital media and electronic literature can be used to voice social concerns. Sonar is available here.
Testimonies presented in Sonar are designed through the combination of the animation of the tailor-made illustrations, the Máquina de Ouver typographic animations, the voices and the sound effects.
Testimony “The imminence of witnessing Spring blossoming/A iminência de ver florir a Primavera” by Natália Correia (2015). In: Não percas a rosa/Ó liberdade, brancura do relâmpago. Lisboa: Ponto de Fuga, p. 47.
Testimony “The telephone, on the other hand, takes a desperate revenge/Em compensação o telefone vinga-se desesperadamente” by José Gomes Ferreira (1998). In: Poeta militante III. Lisboa: Dom Quixote, pp. 319-322.
Testimony “all made of a single heart/todos feitos d’um só coração” by Manuel Alegre (2014) from “Crónica de abril (segundo Fernão Lopes).” In: País de Abril, uma antologia. Lisboa: Dom Quixote, pp.60-61.
Technical Sheet
Development
Sérgio Rebelo
Pedro Martins
João Couceiro e Castro
Daniela Côrtes Maduro
Concept
Daniela Côrtes Maduro
Project coordination
Pedro Martins
Illustrations
Sérgio Rebelo
Animation
Sérgio Rebelo
João Couceiro e Castro
Text generation and typographic animations by
Web design and development
Sérgio Rebelo
Pedro Martins
Maps and Sonar
Pedro Martins
Sérgio Rebelo
Sound design
Pedro Martins
Sérgio Rebelo
Interaction design
Pedro Martins
Sérgio Rebelo
Research and gathering of testimonies
Daniela Côrtes Maduro
Selection of excerpts and sentences
Daniela Côrtes Maduro
Translation into English
Daniela Côrtes Maduro
Voice-over
Version in Portuguese
Maria Manuel Almeida
João Paulo Janicas
Cooperativa Bonifrates
Version in English
Tracy Vandal
João Rui
Coordination of the project by Bonifrates
João Maria André
João Paulo Janicas
Voice-over recording and editing
Miguel Alves (Centro de Meios Audiovisuais da Escola Superior de Educação, IPC)
English-language voice-over recording
João Rui
Victor Torpedo
Portuguese-language and English-language voice-over final editing, mixing and mastering
João Rui
Acknowledgments
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
Biblioteca Nacional Digital
Cap Magellan
Casa da Achada – Centro Mário Dionísio
Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra
Centro de Literatura Portuguesa, Universidade de Coimbra
Clube do Autor
Cooperativa Bonifrates
Edições «Avante!»
Partido Comunista Português (copyright holder of Álvaro Cunhal’s work)
Edições Parsifal
Editorial Bizâncio
Escola Superior de Educação, Politécnico de Coimbra
Esquerda.net
Fundação Mário Soares
Arquivo Mário Soares
Leya
Dom Quixote
Quetzal Editores
Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores