»The New Dunites« 
Light Box
Light Box 10.06.41 a. m..png)
© Andrés Burbano, Solen Kiratli, Danny Bazo, Angus Forbes; Andrés Burbano and Solen Kiratli received an Incentive to Latin American Production in VIDA 13.0 for New Dunites, an archaeological and artistic research project that is rescuing the remains of a major Hollywood production from the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes
Keywords
Information
Andres Burbano >
»The New Dunites«, 2009 - 2013
Co-Workers & Funding:
Co-workers: Sölen Kıratlı, Danny Bazo, Angus Forbes.Funding: UCIRA, University of California Research for the Arts, USA - VIDA, Fundación Telefónica, Spain.
The New Dunites from The New Dunites on Vimeo.
The New Dunites is a site-specific research project in the arts investigating a culturally unique and biologically diverse geographic site located on California’s Central Coast. The site and its history have many interesting components, such as a unique coastal dune ecology and biodiversity, and having been a communal home to a group of intellectuals in the 40s who called themselves “the Dunites”. However, the most prominent of these components from a point of view of media archaeology is the site’s role in director Cecil B. Demille’s 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments. Buried under these dunes are the dynamited remains of the set of this epic spectacle. Throughout our process of research and implementation we have employed many tools and methodologies of the arts and sciences to investigate this land. In an attempt to articulate and mediate the interaction between humans and this special environment, our end product is the construction of an ecology of interfaces (from mobile device apps to gallery installations) which uses the data gathered by our explorations as their primary input. Our goal, as media artists and researchers, has been to create an alternative narrative of this wonderfully complex site through the usage of scientific data, historical facts, and artistic practice.
Technology
Hardware
GPR, Ground Penetrating RadarHardware
Helium Balloons
Descriptions & Essays
Andres Burbano 20-02-2018
“The Ten Commandments was renowned for the massive set constructed in California's Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes -- some pieces stood over 30 metres tall. Worried that rival film studios might use the facsimiles of an ancient palace, massive Pharaoh statues and sphinxes, DeMille ordered the crew to dynamite and bury them all in the sand after filming.
These discarded simulacra have become buried treasure and permits for excavation require lots of cash and confusing paperwork. The site doesn't look much, either: "You think you've found an amazing hidden story," says Andres Burbano, 40, a PhD student at University of California Santa Barbara, "but then people near the dunes say, 'We don't know why you pay attention to that pile of trash.'"
Along with fellow students Danny Bazo, and Solen Kiratli DiCicco, both 33, he has virtually excavated the land using non-invasive ground-penetrating radar.
Custom software that Burbano built himself processes the 3D data to create visualisations of the buried objects.
The researchers needed aerial photographs of the land to guide the exploration, so they built and launched a helium balloon-kite made of Mylar and fishing line with a digital camera attached. The high-resolution-image panoramas were then stitched together using Hugin open-source software. The UCSB team plans to explore a nearby section of the dunes that was a mystical art colony in the 1930s.”
Joanne McNeil , Wired UK, Tuesday 24 July 2012
Andres Burbano: The New Dunites, 20-02-2018, in: Archive of Digital Art “The Ten Commandments was renowned for the massive set constructed in California's Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes -- some pieces stood over 30 metres tall. Worried that rival film studios might use the facsimiles of an ancient palace, massive Pharaoh statues and sphinxes, DeMille ordered the crew to dynamite and bury them all in the sand after filming.
These discarded simulacra have become buried treasure and permits for excavation require lots of cash and confusing paperwork. The site doesn't look much, either: "You think you've found an amazing hidden story," says Andres Burbano, 40, a PhD student at University of California Santa Barbara, "but then people near the dunes say, 'We don't know why you pay attention to that pile of trash.'"
Along with fellow students Danny Bazo, and Solen Kiratli DiCicco, both 33, he has virtually excavated the land using non-invasive ground-penetrating radar.
Custom software that Burbano built himself processes the 3D data to create visualisations of the buried objects.
The researchers needed aerial photographs of the land to guide the exploration, so they built and launched a helium balloon-kite made of Mylar and fishing line with a digital camera attached. The high-resolution-image panoramas were then stitched together using Hugin open-source software. The UCSB team plans to explore a nearby section of the dunes that was a mystical art colony in the 1930s.”
Joanne McNeil , Wired UK, Tuesday 24 July 2012
Literature
Burbano, Andres. Bazo, Danny, Kiratli, Solen, Forbes, Angus. »The New Dunites.« ACM Multimedia Proceedings 1, no. 20 (November 2012): 1500-1502.
Exhibitions & Events