Augmented Reality and Grand Island's Jewish Ghosts
Channel: Colina Maxwell
Date: 2013-06-09

Augmented Reality and Grand Island's Jewish Ghosts
Presented by: Professors Melissa Shiff & Louis Kaplan (University of Toronto)
Happening: 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. Sunday November 4th, 2012
                at 121 Hughson St. North

Lecture Description:
Mapping Ararat: An Imaginary Jewish Homelands Project is a collaborative digital art and humanities project that reanimates Mordecai Noah's 1825 plan to transform Grand Island New York (located in the Niagara River near Buffalo on the border between the United States and Canada) into Ararat, a "city of refuge for the Jews."  While this bold plan failed, it was the first attempt to create an autonomous Jewish state in modern times.

Utilizing a number of digital media technologies such as augmented reality as well as the construction of an interactive virtual world, this project offers Noah's Ararat vision the chance to become a virtual reality. This presentation will review the major components of the on-site augmented reality walking tour of Ararat that consists of a series of electronic monuments, buildings, and landmarks (whether a virtual synagogue or a port of entry).  In posing this parallel universe, all of these electronic monuments conjure the Jewish phantoms that are haunting the contemporary landscape of Grand Island.  Another facet of Mapping Ararat involves the creation of para-historical artifacts common to all modern nation-states whether money, flags, postcards, or newspapers.  Our presentation will demonstrate the range of these Ararat vernacular artifacts.  Finally, the Virtual Ararat component of the project is an interactive cartographic landscape that sets up a 3D world within a gallery installation.  We will preview this immersive, user-activated art installation that we are creating via computer game authoring technology.

Speaker Bios:
Melissa Shiff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto and the director of the Mapping Ararat project for which she was awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant. Shiff is a video, performance, and installation artist whose work engages Jewish cultural memory, repurposing museum collections, and animating the archive using digital technology. Her highly acclaimed video sculpture ARK was the keynote project for the Jewish Museum in Prague's centennial year celebration in 2006. Her works have been exhibited internationally at such prominent venues as The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco, Jewish Museum New York and Beit Hatfutsot Tel Aviv as well as at Nuit Blanche in Toronto and Concordia University in Montreal.
Website: www.melissashiff.com

Louis Kaplan is Professor of History and Theory of Photography and New Media, University of Toronto, and Chair, Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto, Mississauga. He is also affiliated with the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto. He serves as the chief researcher and theorist on the SSHRC supported Mapping Ararat project. Professor Kaplan has published widely in such areas as photography studies, art history, Jewish studies, and visual culture. He is the author of numerous books and over fifty essays. His acclaimed book Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Biographical Writings (Duke, 1995) was translated into Chinese and published by the Zhejiang Photographic Press in 2010. He serves as senior research consultant to the Shpilman Institute for Photography in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Website: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/dvs/louis-kaplan