Past, Present, Future

Past, Present, Future is an immersive and interactive art installation that seeks to put displaced Congolese and African artwork - commonly displayed in world museums - into their original cultural context. The exhibit's immersive experience sheds light on the colonial exploitation of African peoples and their lifestyles: specifically the expropriation of lived African spiritual and artistic expressions. These artifacts - sometimes stolen outright, sometimes obtained through imbalanced terms of trade, and sometimes obtained by fair bargain - often appear in exhibits as disembodied objects devoid of explanation or reinterpreted through the conceptions of the exploiters. This phenomenon has historically supported the consciousness of colonialism and now of post- and neo-colonialism, maintaining its propagation through museums, schools, and other institutions worldwide. The exhibition is composed of a virtual environment in addition to projection mapping. The visual, aural, and interactive elements engage with and challenge the viewer's culturally conditioned ways of thought regarding artwork "consumption." This thesis, building on the exhibition, examines the possibilities of employing evolving technology and coding toward the long-term task of "softly" repatriating displaced artifacts while starting a conversation about physical repatriation and providing a model that Congolese scholars and artists can use to preserve and reclaim their cultural heritage.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Creative Technologies

Department dc:contributor.department

Art and Art History

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Kimbangu, Rodney Bidi

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Tucker, Thomas James

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Franusich, David John
• Weaver, Rachel L.

• photogrammetry
• VR
• AR
• scanning
• unreal engine
• art
• technology
• artifacts
• African
• looted
• displaced
• colonial
• Congo
• Kongo
• masks
• projection-mapping
• repatriation
• virtual
• reality
• expropriation
• museums
• Tshokwe
• Chokwe
• Baule
• Zande
• 3D Mode

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:37732

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115890