|Mexico DF, México|
Under Mexican law it is illegal to buy or sell any archaeological artifacts made by the country’s native populations prior to Spanish colonization. In Vendepatrias (loosely translated as Motherland Salesman) photogrammetry is used to generate digital 3D models of pre-columbian artifacts from museums in Mexico which are later offered for sale both as digital non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and as plastic 3D prints. The project explores how photogrammetry, 3D printing and NFTs can be used as critical media by questioning how the act of transforming national heritage from its tangible form into digital files can strip it from its cultural value and turn it into objects purely of consumption.
Obtaining quality 3D scans of museum artifacts without collaboration from curators and archivists would have been extremely difficult only a few years ago. However the current ubiquity of mobile phones and the recent increase in their camera’s quality -along with the inclusion of LiDAR technology in many devices- allows any knowledgeable visitor to capture data that produces fairly accurate reconstructions.
This is the procedure followed in Vendepatrias, artifacts from several museums’ displays were video recorded from all possible angles and processed to produce 3D digital copies. The museums staff was not notified beforehand and everything was done under the same conditions that any visitor would have.
The digitization of cultural artifacts often focuses on how digitality affords increased access to collections and a means of preserving vulnerable items. Vendepatrias presents a satirical method through which digitization is used to perpetuate undesirable structures related to colonial extractivism. Under this workflow objects of history and national identity become generators of status and wealth for private collectors speculating on their future value. The project thus exposes that under current techno-economic structures everything can be turned into a subject of the market.