Profiles of the Disposed

Project Description

Profiles of the Disposed is an experimental installation that explores identity and value through discarded personal objects. Based on a collection of waste materials found in New York City, the project reconstructs the profiles of three anonymous individuals —Subjects A, B, and C— through the meticulous cataloging of each item: weight, dimensions, material, origin, and associated data.

The objects were scanned in 3D using photogrammetry and then integrated into a virtual environment developed in Unity. The experience can be explored in virtual reality using a smartphone and Google Cardboard headset, enabling a more intimate and speculative encounter with these material remnants.

The project functions as an affective archaeology of the everyday, and simultaneously as an attempt to build a digital landfill: a space to visualize, preserve, and reflect on what we discard without thought. This virtual archive reveals not only patterns of consumption, surveillance, and displacement, but also the intimate traces of lives that remain invisible within the systems we inhabit.

This was my thesis project for the Master’s in Media Arts at ITP - NYU This was my thesis project for the Master’s in Media Arts at ITP - NYU. Scholarship funded by CONICYT - Becas Chile

Project Info

• Role: Direction, Concept, 3D scanning, VR development
• Technologies: Unity, Agisoft Photoscan, Google Cardboard
• Date: 2016