FROZEN IN TIME - Not a schoolhouse (2023-)

with CAM Collective for UKAI Projects

Is education a way to enforce order?
Is there room for disruption and play within the boundaries of order that a colonial education imparts?

As part of the residency ‘This is Not A Schoolhouse’ we explored the subject, the preserved classroom known as the Zion Schoolhouse in Toronto. The place is unique in its preservation because it is situated as being “frozen”, yet reflected the changing attitudes of our time. We realized there was an invisible yet lingering presence of power. Hierarchies of colonial language that are coded within the educational system, such as “God”, “king”, “country”, “teacher” were made apparent through our research.

This project is an experiment with AI and NERFs (Neural Radiance Field) as tools to portray the “frozen-ness” of the schoolhouse as well as the “shifting” of the idea of order. By harnessing time as a method of disruption, we endeavor to illuminate the notion of colonial order in the Zion Schoolhouse. Viewers are invited to embark on a thought-provoking journey as temporal boundaries blur and shift in our interactive scene.

This project was featured in Open Doors Toronto and UKAI’s Carnival of Algorithmic Culture.

Video of Experience ︎︎︎

Frozen in Time - Not a Schoolhouse, in collaboration with Amreen Ashraf and Maria Yala.

This is a recording of the walkable scene in an exported build created with Unity 3D. The scene entails many digitally scanned items from the schoolhouse using Luma AI, arranged and curated carefully in the scene to reinterpret the Zion Schoolhouse and evoke a different perspective.

This scene was projected as part of the exhibit at Carnival of Algorithmic Culture. The user could experience the scene by walking around using the laptop on the podium. If the limitations of the venue were not posed, this experience would have been projected on the wall, and dimensions between the viewer and the viewer exploring the scene could be explored as part of the installation.

The idea of the educational material that was “frozen” in the schoolhouse “pouring out” in the scene was explored as part of the concept execution. In this MVP build, the user walks through the scene and sees schoolhouse virtually without having to be onsite. The books, pages and items that we chose are animated and enlarged to add to the experience.

Slideshow of experience︎︎︎