Below the Astral Shroud
Nov.2020 // Digital Prints on 70gsm Broadsheets; Digital AR Models.
Feb.2021 // Presented at the 2021 Convergence Symposium at The Hopkins Center for the Arts.
Conceived as a two-spread portion of a larger collaborative publication, Below the Astral Shroud employs both traditional print and new visual media in the form of newspaper printing and augmented reality. Combined, the work engages the nostalgia of the modern-past, especially in the context of a post-digital era.
Pivoting around isolation, timelessness, and the uncharted, Below the Astral Shroud was sparked from a simple fact: satellites cannot image the Earth within a certain radius of the South Pole because of orbital limitations.
The concept that such a large swath of the Earth, one that is already on the brink of our comprehension, still eludes our digitally-enhanced human vision is surprising in the post-digital age. It also brings curiosity, speculation, and a sense of the unknown for a place locked away from the pace of humanity. Taking cues from Walid Raad’s Atlas Group and Hito Steyerl’s use of digital media, Below the Astral Shroud fabricates a deliberately vague narrative, part history and part fiction, engaging our contemporary and culture and nature at the edge of invisibility.
