Multi-Narrative Reconstructions
of Modern Egypt
Hyperreal Perspicuities
Conjuring & Augmenting Historical Hauntings
Hyperreal Perspicuites focuses on developing drawing prototypes that are able to project and reveal the haunted histories embedded witin space during an age of colonialism and modernity in Egypt. The main prototype uses projection mapping to augment the hauntings of colonialism and modernization in Egypt and takes the form of an immersive video. This augmentation bridges the realms of physical and digital space, conjuring the phantoms of the past. It allows the space to be occupied and experienced through multiple perspectives across different periods. Augmentation implies changing by adding and combining information and also paradoxically teasing the space apart (Verhoeff, 2012). Nanna Verhoeff also states that performative cartography is where the pervasive presence, embedded pasts and evolving futures can intersect. By fusing different layers of information, a hybrid space is created where different spaces, periods and narratives can be engaged simultaneously through representation. Through this mode of drawing and its transformations, the viewer has the agency to navigate and position themselves within the drawing. The drawing below illustrates the programme of the event and its connection to three historical events in Egypt.
Keywords: immersive,projection mapping,multiple narratives,cartography,colonialism,perspective,drawing,hauntings
​
[fade from black]
[lights switch on]
Enter British, French and Russian Ships
[road surface fades in water]
[ships begin firing]
Navarino Fort materializes above
[fort begins rotating above]
[ships begin firing]
[loud explosion and fade to white]
Scene 3: Bombardment of Alexandria
​
[scene fades into a middle of a battle]
Alexandria of Light and Qaitbay Fort occupies the centre. Battleships begin circling the perimeter.
[ships start firing]
[sounds of cannons and explosions]
[fort and tower begin distorting and warping]
Dilapidated structures appear in the square.
[tower and fort experience intense seismic activity and fade out]
[ships fade out]
​
[scene fades in from white]
[sounds of ear ringing from explosion]
Debris fade in.
[debris move along the y-axis in slowmotion]
[sounds of being submerged in water]
Monument of the Unknown Naval Soldier and fallen ships fade in.
[monument and ships begin rotating] [scene fades to black]
The scene opens with cars and cafe’s occupying the square.
[sounds of cafes and chatter within Downtown Cairo]
[sound fades into silence]
Three trucks and a car pull up to one of the buildings.
A large explosion occurs.
[lights trip out and cars fade out]
Mob appears in the centre.
[sound of flames and people panicking]
[Flames engulf the rest of the buildings]
[sound builds with intensity] [scene fades to black]
Altering Perceptions
Multiple Perspectives of the Same Event
Drawings are not just illustrations or simple representations of an incontestable past but they are also a form of rhetoric. Through the process of drawing, we are able to confront and define our own gaps in the historical record, challenging our ability to recover and comprehend the past (Sayers, 2017). The manifested representation helps us understand complex changes over time while also addressing how power manifests spatially through different experiences and movements in past places (Sayers, 2017). The video below illustrates how the positioning of the performer in the drawing alters the meaning of the events. These changing viewpoints make us question what we thought we knew, by allowing us to approach an embodied experience through multiple viewpoints. Three examples below are taken from the event that generates different meanings in space.
Scene 3: Bombardment of Alexandria
Projection Type: Stereographic
Looking up:
Creates the perception that the ships are firing away from the fort protecting it.
Looking down:
Shows the ships attacking the fort.
Scene 1: Battle of Navarino
Projection Type: Stereographic
​
Looking from the centre:
This places you in the centre creating the perception that the surrounding ships are firing at you.
Zooming out:
This position allows you to assume the perspective of the ships attacking the centre of the square.
Scene 2: Battle of Navarino
Projection Type: Stereographic
Looking up:
Positions you in the perspective of a fallen naval soldier submerged in the ocean with the debris moving towards you.
Looking down:
Places you above the water looking at the wreckage below the surface with the debris moving away from you.
Navigation through Performative Cartography
Performing in the Narratives of Drawing
Traditionally Cartography has its roots in the scientific-visual paradigm which is based on the idea that in a representation of a map the observer is at a distance from the observed. This is paradigm is referred to as the Cartesian way of seeing by Jonathan Crary. This paradigm considers time and space as absolute and measurable phenomena that work along lines of a predetermined mechanical and progressive logic (Verhoeff, 2012). The main prototype called "The Parade of Phantoms" challenges this notion by creating a procedural experience, without a fixed viewpoint allowing the drawing to unfold along undetermined lines and allowing new perspectives to be produced through both the mobility of the viewer and the spatial construction of the panoramic view. This is achieved by shifting the lines of latitude and longitude and controlling the distance between scene and viewer. The overlayed grid acts as an indicatrix tracking the distortion of the space and projections to reveal the anamorphic qualities of the drawing. By right-clicking anywhere in the event video, you can access the cartographic transformations which further modify the drawing.
The Parade of Phantoms uses the medium of an immersive video that utilizes directional sound. This sound is best experienced through a pair of earphones or headphones. For the most amount of mobility and more immersion in the event select the "Little Planet View" and keep the video in full screen mode while navigating. To attend The Parade of Phantoms please click the image below:
Hyperreal Perspicuities
Transmissions from Haunted Afterlives
Robin Evans mentions that architects never work directly with the object of their thought but almost always through the intervening medium of drawing (Evans, 1997). Drawing and representations of space concern ontology, epistemology and the politics of power that shape the world. These drawings do not just represent the world but produce realities (Kitchin, Gleeson and Dodge, 2013). Our conventions of representation are products of the Cartesian way of seeing. The “Cartesian” way of seeing relates to the Newtonian model of the world in which time and space are regarded as linear, absolute and quantifiable. This Cartesian model forms the underlying structure for how we conventionally represent space (Verhoeff, 2012). During the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, absolute time was used to organize knowledge about nation-states. Academic disciplines emerged, and science discovered that time is not mechanical and linear. Einstein’s special theory of relativity demonstrated that the measurement of time is dependent on the framework of observation – that time is relative to the observer (Tanaka, 2019). The Parade of Phantoms prototype hybridizes the Cartesian construction allowing us to experience and observe space-time in a non-linear way. This subversion of the Newtonian model allows the concealed multiplicities of space to surface and manifest. This prototype challenges conventional ways of representing space by creating a dialogic way to represent, engage and design with the historical archive.
​
For information on the process behind drawing the Parade of Phantoms please click on "Constructing the Parade" below.
