Long Road

Projects

Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal (beta launch may 2009): go here to browse the portal

Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal Project:

This project will be completed in April 2009. For more details visit our informational web site here.

Mukurtu Project UPDATES:

If you are looking for information about the Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive please check out the website.

Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive: Demo archive version online now! (December 2007)

We’ve added a link on our Mukurtu website to a demo version of the archive software. You can test out the application, add yourself as a user, upload content, make collections, add restrictions and more! Check it out.

Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive: Live! (November 2007)

This Indigenous archive tool is a custom piece of software designed for the Warumungu Aboriginal community in Tennant Creek. The website contains information about the archive including a video demo of the software tool and our future development plans.

Since December 2006 we have made great progress on the archive. Based in community feedback we simplified and streamlined the upload process, we revamped the user interface, and we have made changes to the user profiles and restrictions sections of the archive. We also got a new name for the archive: Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive. Mukurtu is a Warumungu term meaning “dilly bag.” Dilly bags were used as “safe keeping places” for Warumungu sacred materials in the past. The archive’s name reflects the fact that this is a new type of “safe keeping place” mirroring the cultural protocols for the proper circulation, distribution, and viewing of cultural materials.

Over the last few months we also added Tim Dietrich to our archive “team.” Tim worked some programming magic getting all of the requirements for uploads and browsing working well. Thanks Tim!

I will be going to Tennant Creek in mid-August to install the archive and work with the community to get content uploaded and get people comfortable with the system. The archive will be housed at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre in town and will be open to all community members.

After the Vectors Web site was completed (see below) we were able to leverage the database to begin the production and design of a digital community archive based on Warumungu protocols for viewing, sorting, and searching information (ie–content in any digital form). Community members want an archive built to their access codes–so we designed a back-end with an extensive user profile database. Community members each have links to families, country and dreamings which in turn link them to one another and to different sets of knowledge. Photos, audio, video etc., are all tagged with multiple metadata creating a rich repository of culturally defined materials and levels of access. In addition, community members, already familiar with Apple’s iLife suite, wanted a user-friendly archive that could not only preserve cultural content but also one that could facilitate cultural production. They want to create their own slide shows, CDs and DVDs with the material available to them.

Last year, I received a WSU “New Faculty Seed Grant” to collaborate with technical consultants and Warumungu community members to produce a prototype. Chris Cooney, Craig Dietrich and I are working with Warumungu community members and the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre management and staff in Tennant Creek. We are halfway through the process.

I just returned from Tennant Creek (November 2006) after spending two weeks there demoing the first prototype to community members.

We are now entering phase two of the project: adding to the “production” capabilities, incorporating more community feedback on the user interface and working with other interested parties (granting bodies, etc.) to facilitate the final production and implementation.

An interactive Web space concerning Aboriginal systems of property and knowledge management based on my work with the Warumungu Aboriginal community in Australia. This site was produced as part of the USC Institute for Multimedia Literacy Vectors Journal project. Christopher Cooney was the producer/project manager, Alessandro Ceglia designed the site and Craig Detrich was the User Interface Engineer. We all collaborated with and were guided by Warumungu community consultants in Tennant Creek, N.T., Australia.