Tiago Aragona // Creative Technologist and Designer

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Indigenous Storyteller

2024

IndigenousStorytellerisaphysicalcomputingdevicethatgenerateslocalizedstoriesfromIndigenousculturesbasedontheuser’srealgeographiclocation.ItblendsAI,geolocation,andhandcraftedhardwaretoreconnectpeoplewiththeancestralnarrativestiedtothelandtheystandon.

THE DEVICE

A culturally rooted and personalized storytelling experience

The Indigenous Storyteller uses an ESP32 microcontroller to detect the user’s exact location through IP geolocation. Once it identifies the region, city, and country, it prompts the OpenAI API to craft a narrative inspired by the Indigenous cultures native to that territory.
The device becomes a small companion that listens to the land and responds with stories that belong to it.

How can technology help us reconnect with the stories that were here long before us?

THE INTERACTION

A simple gesture that opens a world of memory

The interface is intentionally minimal.
A single button requests a story.
A red LED signals that the system is thinking.
A green LED tells the user the story is ready.
Text appears slowly on the LCD screen, inviting the user to pause and receive the narrative with attention. The interaction mirrors the pace of oral tradition, where stories unfold through patience, rhythm, and presence.

The interface is intentionally minimal.
A single button requests a story. A red LED signals that the system is thinking. A green LED tells the user the story is ready. Text appears slowly on the LCD screen, inviting the user to pause and receive the narrative with attention. The interaction mirrors the pace of oral tradition, where stories unfold through patience, rhythm, and presence.

The interface is intentionally minimal. A single button requests a story. A red LED signals that the system is thinking. A green LED tells the user the story is ready. Text appears slowly on the LCD screen, inviting the user to pause and receive the narrative with attention. The interaction mirrors the pace of oral tradition, where stories unfold through patience, rhythm, and presence.

THE PURPOSE

Contemporary tools meet ancestral memory

Indigenous Storyteller was created to highlight how technology can be used not to replace culture, but to help us reconnect with it.
By generating narratives tied to specific regions, the device encourages users to recognize the histories embedded in the places they inhabit. Every story becomes a moment of learning and respect, showing that AI can support cultural memory when guided with intention and care.

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