Vanessa Santos is a digital media artists and researcher. She is Ph.D. in Communication with the thesis “Designing Mobile Narratives: Discursive Strategies and Participation Modes in Locative Media Arts”, qualified with an excellent cum laude. She is Journalist (2002), holds a Master degree in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media (UPF, 2011), and a Master degree in Communication/ Image and Sound (UnB, 2006).  Her expertise and interests are in audiovisual narratives, interactive systems, locative media and mobile applications.

She worked as research assistant at SPECS – Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group, collaborating on CEEDS – Collective Experience of Empathic Data Systems project. The European Commission FP7 funded project combined basic science research, technology innovation and high impact user methods to the development of an augmented reality application to spatialize and geolocate the database of Bergen-Belsen Memorial about the Holocaust.

As a researcher, Vanessa also worked in Cultura Digital, a project supported by the United Nations Development Program and Government of Brazil/Ministry of Culture. The project for technology inclusion was based on multimedia production with open source software, and the formation of socio-tech networks.

During her career, Vanessa has been teaching for young people and minorities groups, experimenting new educational models for teaching audiovisual and digital media in the context of social projects. Her artistic practice involves the collaborative creation of interactive environments and documentary films, some of them realized with Estilingue and Orquestra Organismo collective of artists.

In 2014, Vanessa integrated the research line on Locative Media of Hangar – Center for the production and research of visual arts. In the artistic residence, she developed a geolocated performance with gameplay called Chronica Mobilis. At the same year, Vanessa spent three months collaborating with the British group Blast Theory.  

In 2016, Vanessa had been teaching “Webdocumentary” and “Transmedia Narratives” signatures in the Postgraduate Course in Documentary at UNA. Currently, she has been a lecture at Pontifícia Universidade Católica.