My Kosmos & Hand-drawn Hologram

My practice explores the phenomenon of virtualisation and ‘blended reality’. I am especially interested in how geospatial technologies such as Google Earth have influenced our perception of space and place.

Daily travel around Sydney can be a surreal experience for me because the architecture and the city planning is different from overlooking the suburbs on Google maps. Here I could perceive two spaces as multiple layers where the physical and virtual realities merge into the areas of Sydney.

In particular, the shapes of buildings and the layout of cities. The houses are closely packed with long rows of double-storey brick terraces that look like a series of building styles characteristic of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It is the intriguing exterior of the buildings that provokes my curiosity about the aerial view of the layout of these buildings.

On a daily basis I record the spaces I walk through using mapping technology, like Google Maps. I use these recordings as reference to create line drawings and paintings of Sydney onto the aluminium surface. I then superimpose these with my hand drawn ‘scratch holograms’ to create the ‘virtual’ reality that you see move.

I feel that using geospatial technologies is a direct reflection of my thought, imagination and dream. Using Goggle Earth is like travelling in a virtual world (thought, imagination and dream) where the viewer becomes part of another dimension. I believe that we not only desire to replicate reality by utilising this technology, but we want to transition entirely into this dimension, where we can expand our worlds around us endlessly.