News

Get to know the voice of the researcher from the University of La Serena (Chile, connected to REUNA) and leader of the Achalai community. Read this and other interviews in the book "Name, voice and instrument of collaboration in Latin America”.

How do you use the connection to RedCLARA’s advanced network?
In the first stage it was used basically in videoconferences, streaming transmission and use of the portal to:

a)      Transmit of 4 Classes-Conferences for the communities of Academic Institutions related to our research subject, namely music and musical instruments or pre-Hispanic sound objects.

b)      Use of VC for 19 coordination and study meetings between community members.

c)      Archive documentation and reports resulting from the work meetings and publish scientific articles and others produces by community members, in Achalai/COMCLARA’s wiki.

d)      As indicated in Achalai’s programme, the plan for 2013 is to archive the reconstituted sounds and produce and transmit virtual concerts in real time with performers in different parts, something for which RedCLARA’s advanced network connections will be very useful.

What has been the contribution of this connection to your work?
So far only occasionally as support, since not all community members have easy access; several key members in the study of instruments do not belong to an institution that is part of RedCLARA.

We have contact through email on a daily basis, and we also use Skype occasionally.

Could or can your initiative operate –and be effective- through commercial Internet?
To operate through commercial internet would be worse and almost impossible, due to the costs this would imply and because it goes beyond academic borders.

The use of internet through RedCLARA opens up a space and an international academic network and we make ourselves known in the international academic arena.

How important is RedCLARA for the development of Achalai’s research and academic activities?
I think it is a good example of academic work, but I think we haven’t yet been able or dared to take advantage of it.

Our plan is to be able to deliver an inter-institutional virtual class on Latin American ethno-musicology.

What should be the role of advanced networks over the next few years in relation to science and the academia?
To continue encouraging the existing communities and the creation of new ones, which can also interact between themselves, so that the various member institutions of the network believe in these actions, invest on equipment and renew them permanently, establishing suitable spaces for transmissions and connections.

This modality can enhance academic work in the field of scientific research and artistic creation, as regards their production, as well as in the dissemination of their results and creations through teaching and outreach activities across the globe.