EXCAVATIONS

Excavations explores the convergence between cinema, technology and museology. With major museums now responding to technological shifts and undertaking the process of digitising large volumes of their collections through 3d scanning, never before has human history been more accessible and yet more detached and distanced. Parallel to this, cinema, the dominant medium for the dissemination of historical representations is shifting from using physical film props towards embracing digital 3D CGI artefacts, often composites of these readily available museum 3D models.

Taking an expanded polystyrene film prop based on the Naxian Sphinx, the work presents a subversion on a traditional museum vitrine whereby the viewer's experience of the object is interrupted and mediated by an animation, overlaid using a transparent LCD screen. Incorporating a range of 3D photogrammetric scans of multiple versions of the sample film prop found in a London prop archive along with models appropriated from Museum websites and online databases, the borders between virtual and physical objects of representation are expounded. Digital artefacts, the product of machine vision, and film props, the product of mechanical reproduction, are imbued with the potential to act as both tools of cultural/historical conservation and as actors that shape and remould the data flows of history.

Excavations (2015)
Mixed Media Installation - Vitrine, transparent LCD screen, film prop, LED lighting, HD 3D animation.
08:00 min Full HD video, continuous loop, silent, colour.