In August of 2007, the City of Puerto Vallarta issued a press release about InfoArte, a series of artistic kiosks/computer information terminals to be spread around town.
On Monday, March 10, 2008, at 7pm on the Malecón (near the seahorse sculpture) InfoArte had its official grand opening.
The Mayor of Puerto Vallarta, Javier Bravo Carbajal, accompanied by the director general of Infoarte, Luis Alberto Zepeda Topete, the sculptor Octavio Gonzalez, and various tourism authorities launched the new system of multi-media sculptures that provide tourist information instantly throughout the town.
Infoarte: technology and art in the service of Puerto Vallarta
by PVNews
August, 2007
At a recent presentation for investors, Luis Alberto Topete unveiled the Infoarte project. The project combines art and technology to present information to tourists in Puerto Vallarta. One of the 5 different sculptures to be featured in the project was exhibited.
The fusion of art and technology makes Infoarte a unique product not only in Mexico but in the world. Infoarte promotes Puerto Vallarta as an international art destination and will provide an informative guide that is functional, accessible and free to all tourists and residents.
Infoarte combines modern bronze sculptures produced by the artist Octavio Gonzalez with art-information modules. This combination of leading-edge technology and artistic expression will provide tourists information in three languages through a user-friendly and speedy search system, using touch screen technology. These innovative tourist guides have low power usage and are resistant to weather and vandalism.This Infoarte tourist guide will be the most modern and innovative in Puerto Vallarta.
Five versions (with 20 installations in total) of the multimedia sculptures will be installed in the areas of greatest traffic, such as on the Malecon, in Marina Vallarta, the Hotel Zone and the Zona Romántica.
At a meeting of public officials and well-known personalities from the political, business, social and cultural development of the region, the engineer and general manager of the company, Luis Alberto Zepeda Topete talked about the idea of creating Infoarte, which was conceived just year ago.
“I assure you that we will be the first city in the world to have a service of this nature,” explained Topete Infoarte. “This project was designed and born in Vallarta. It is done with total creativity and originality.”
At first, conventional prefabricated kiosks were considered, but in commitment to the city’s artistic nature, it was decided to integrate the modules into the bronze sculptures of Octavio Gonzalez.
