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canal*ACCESSIBLE
http://www.zexe.net/barcelona
Golden Nica Digital Communities
How can new media be used to improve the world we live in? Since the introduction of the Digital Communities category in 2004, Prix Ars Electronica has been dealing more intensively with the socially relevant implementation of artistic and technological innovations.
As its name suggests, canal*ACCESSIBLE addresses the accessibility or inaccessibility inherent in the topographical surroundings of people who have difficulty walking. The city of Barcelona is taken as an example. 40 handicapped individuals document the problems they encounter on their way through the city by using images and, in a few cases, sound recordings. This material is posted to the website, and the places at which each one was created are specified on a city map. These locations can then be accessed using a built-in “find” function.
The result is a map of Barcelona’s inaccessibility for those confined to wheelchairs, a cartographic representation of the parts of town that are closed to people with handicaps. In this way, 3,578 architectural barriers and stumbling blocks have been documented on canal*ACCESSIBLE since December 2005—thus, empowerment of disadvantaged segments of the population as something other than empty phrases for once.
Source: Prix Ars Electronica 2006
Cross-reference: The right to reprint is reserved for the press; no royalties will be due only with proper copyright attribution.
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Prix Ars Electronica - International Competition for Cyberarts 
