Big tech companies are showing a genuine interest in the metaverse . Despite the fact that the initiatives with the most spotlight happen in other countries, in Mexico and Latin America there are communities concerned that minorities have access to this innovation and create their own narrative .
Gabriela Acosta, co-founder of the Muv creative laboratory and director of VR Fest MX, accepts that in the history of technology many realities have been made invisible, so now, in the face of the revolution that the metaverse and its tools represent, it is important that more people consolidate your access and create connections to include different sectors of the population.
The Quechua filmmaker, Violeta Ayala, agrees with Acosta and adds that in this initial stage it is more important to include minorities, such as indigenous communities, because that way they have the ability to tell their story instead of someone else doing it, with its own narrative resources and not those inherited by other cultures.
“It is a moment of experimentation, there is no map (to guide). We are putting everything together, we are experiencing a historic revolution that provides the opportunity not to reproduce the vices that existed in macho cinema and that tells the stories of others. They have told us so much about who we were that we have believed them”, says Ayala.
Ayala is the first Quechua filmmaker to be part of the Academy of Cinema, Arts and Sciences, but her work is strongly related to technology. The exhibition Las Awichas recently premiered, which is made up of portraits of Quechua women generated through Artificial Intelligence.
Among other projects in which he collaborates is the cholaverse, a metaverse proposal in which minorities are mixed to give them a voice in digital and although there is no work path, he mentions that “the map is critically understanding to create and that the patriarchal historical error is not repeated” of other narratives.
VR Fest MX 2022, a festival that seeks inclusion
Throughout October, the VR Fest MX 2022 will take place, where the community that is developing Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality technology in Latin America will converge to promote the creation of new narratives.
Its first stage (from October 3 to 5) will be held in a series of free virtual conferences, focused on creation and social inclusion. On October 7 there will be a virtual business meeting and from October 8 to 23 there will be the presentation of Hypha, a first-person VR animation
“We are not going to be consumers of someone else’s metaverse,” says Ayala. “The future is in our hands and it is an important challenge for young people who understand that it will be based on co-creation, on collaboration. We need, like never before, not to depend on Hollywood, but on our own creations”.
In this regard, Gabriela Acosta details that the organization of the festival is going to award a scholarship to support and empower independent creators in the region and thus reduce structural and systematic inequalities in the use of technologies, access to creation processes and financing.
The creators point out that although there is an effort to improve the technological and creative panorama of the region, public policies and cultural managers are required to understand the impact of these tools, since they are influencing many industries and aspects of the economy.
