_Shadows of Progress (Sombras del Progreso)

The Spanish automotive company SEAT was founded in 1950 by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Franco believed the company could be run as a model, in a period when workers were struggling for rights.

Shadows of Progress was created by Master’s students in the Program for Theory and Practice of Creative Documentary at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. The story can be experienced in two ways. Viewers can choose to follow the “assembly line” which is an animation depicting the different phases of car manufacturing: at each phase the viewer can click to reveal a video about workers’ rights issues related to that process. Alternatively, viewers can also tell their own story, by entering a small piece of text describing their own personal views on the state of workers’ rights and employment issues today. The project searches a viewer’s text to pull out keywords, discover relevant video material in the documentary, and recreate a personalized ordering of the experienced based on the viewer’s input. Shadows of Progress gives viewers a new lens on current day financial crises and workers’ rights issues by connecting them with stories from the past.