Fundación Telefónica

• Fundación Telefónica
• Versión Español

Cultural Portals

Created by Fundación Telefónica in 2000, this pioneering digital macromuseum allows Internet users to pay an interactive 3D visit to significant monuments of the artistic, cultural and historical heritage of Spain, Latin America and Morocco, thanks to the great possibilities offered by ICT.

The arsVIRTUAL portal currently has 52 virtual recreations of emblematic monuments, 18 digitizations and another 8 interactive multimedia presentations.

At present, one can visit the Monastery of San Lorenzo El Escorial or La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Cusco cathedral in Peru or the Rapa Nui national park on Easter Island in Chile, or travel through the Mausoleum of Mohammed V in Morocco. Each of these virtual visits makes it possible to discover a vast amount of detail and “secrets”, many of them not available to the public, with a high degree of realism.

The newest item in the program in 2008 has been the a new virtual visit to the Cathedral of Leon, considered by many to be the best representation of Gothic art in Spain. Its digitization has included previously unpublished access to areas such as the high altar and multi-colored stained-glass windows that have made this cathedral so famous. At the same time, work has continued to recreate the Cathedral of Seville and the old Roman city of Emerita Augusta(present-day Mérida) just as it was at the end of the first century. This will be finished by the end of 2009.

Proof of the impact of arsVIRTUAL are the more than 4,500,000 direct visits to its portal, and indirect visits through other associated portals such as those of the National Heritage site, La Sagrada Familia, Hispania Nostra, Cathedrals, and Fundación Telefónica portals from the Latin American branches.

ArsVIRTUAL to Create the Experimental Center of @rte and Digital Industry
The project “Plan Avanza” from Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce is designed to foster optimal use of ICT. In 2007-2008 Plan Avanza  granted the arsVIRTUAL program a significant financial subsidy to create the Experimental Center of @rte and Digital Industry. This subsidy was granted as part of the ministry’s goal to promote projects and centers focused on the development of the Information Society, the creation of digital content or the digitization of interesting content (artistic, cultural or from the public sector).
The project’s main purpose is to digitize graphical material and documentation and create new virtual visits for more than twenty collections and emblematic monuments, relying on the most innovative virtual reality multimedia technologies.

More information:
www.arsvirtual.com Perucultural is a virtual educational space consisting of more than 60 web pages of the principal public and private institutions linked to artistic, cultural and intellectual work of in Peru. It offers literary, cultural and entertainment activities, contests, debate topics and schedule information on Peruvian cultural life. In addition, it offers information related to pre-Hispanic Peru, since it offers links to the most important databases in Peru (libraries, antique photographs, pre-Hispanic textiles, Mochica ceramics, etc.)

The portal, created in 1999 and a member of the World Directory of UNESCO and of the Inter-American Cultural Policy Observatory, received a total of 4,037,787 visits in 2008 with 21,906,984 pages viewed, making it a very important on-line resource.  

More information:
www.perucultural.org.pe