Medium (Between Traveler and Monument) (2018)
This series is about archives, both real and fabricated, and the spaces that exist between: between fiction and nonfiction, between moving and static images, between the viewer and that which is seen, between now and then, between us and them. The print works featured are derived from recently digitized films that were originally produced by Muriel Orr Ewing (1900-1994). In January 1964, Orr Ewing and a group of friends took a trip to the Middle East; while touring the Nile on a riverboat cruise, Orr Ewing visited Abu Simbel, the Nubian monument from 13th-century BC consisting of two temples that was erected by Ramesesse II to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Kadesh and to honor himself and Queen Nefertari. Shortly after her tour of the Nile, Abu Simbel was relocated from the shores of Lake Nasser, among several other ancient temples and monuments, in an effort undertaken by UNESCO to preserve the cultural heritage of the area in advance of the Aswan High Dam project. The series presents, through home movies, the last vestiges of the Colonial gaze captured on the cusp of Egypt's modernization. Medium... is an extension of my current research at RPI’s CRAIVE (Collaborative-Research Augmented Immersive Virtual Environment) Laboratory, a project in collaboration with J.T. Rinker, PhD.
Untitled
(2018, digital prints, 17x20)
Stills taken from original 16mm kodachrome by Murriel Orr-Ewing1962