RELOCATING THE REMAINS
(A NOMAD LEAVES FEW TRACES)
Collection;
1. the act or process
of collecting. 2. a number of things collected or assembled together.
3. something gathered into a mass or pile.
'Relocating the Remains',
is a project which sets out to echo the concept of the 'expedition'.
Not the 'expedition' in any high colonialist sense; the expedition which
saw the power to survey, map and record as a prelude to subjugation
and annexation under the hegemony of some imperialist power. More 'expedition'
in the sense of an individual's exploration of a landscape across which
others have past, leaving fragmented remains, traces and ephemera. It
becomes therefore, 'expedition' in the sense of ones efforts to uncover
and decipher, to accumulate, translate and relocate the remains.
A Smudge, A Fragment &
A Whisper.
In the case of this project,
the act of 'relocation' takes on multiple meanings. In a literal sense,
the relocation becomes from physical to virtual space. The remains of
objects, activities and idea's which at one time exclusively occupied
the cold space of galleries and other places designated for the display
of art, have become disembodied, recoded into digital form. At points
these remains are compacted onto CD-Rom , at others they are set adrift
onto the virtual expanses of the Internet.
We have the choice of relocating
the remains which lie beyond three virtual gateways. The first gateway
is called "UnMapped". The Second is called "UnRecorded", the third is
called "Unclassified". Beyond "UnMapped" lies an investigation of the
various perceptions of the black body as defined beneath the dominant
gaze. "UnRecorded" examines the gaps in historical narratives which
continue to distort and obscure black presence. "UnClassified" centres
around an examination of the impact of new technologies on surveillance
and policing, especially in relation to notions of community, nation
and cultural difference.
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