Original photo by Margot Lubinski in Jamaica, 1946.
Animation & sound by Rodell Warner, 2019
Original photo shot in Speyside, Tobago, 1960.
Photographer unknown. Animation & sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
Original photo shot at Blue Basin Waterfall, Trinidad, 1949.
Photographer unknown. Animation and sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
Original photo shot in Trinidad. Year unknown, photographer unknown.
Animation and sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
Original photo shot at the Sulphur Springs at Soufriere, St. Lucia, circa 1910-1950.
Photographer unknown. Animation and sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
Original photo shot in Jamaica, circa 1950-1959. Photographer unknown.
Animation and sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
Original photo shot in Barbados, circa 1947-1949.
Photographer unknown. Animation and sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
Original photo shot in Trinidad in 1945 at a Hindu temple near Port of Spain.
Photographer unknown. Animation and sound by Rodell Warner, 2019.
augment
verb- make (something) greater by adding to it; increase.
archive
noun- a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.
Augmented Archive is a mash-up of digital animation, sound, and found photos. Artist Rodell Warner plays with the apparent narratives presented in the photos, to engage in, and invite, contemplation of the lives and histories of the people and places in the photos. He considers doing this work as an intervention in the representation of these people and places, one that makes imaginative, alternative evaluations more possible.
Rodell is interested in the ways in which available and emergent technologies shape the creation and existences, proliferation, and propagation of these images, both in their original forms and when sampled, edited, or remixed, and how those technologies leave their marks on the images.
The first iteration in this series is comprised of the seven videos presented here (Augmented Archive 001-007) and are all based on images shot in the Caribbean near the middle of the 20th Century. Warner will continue building on this series to develop two more iterations of the Augmented Archive, which will explore and sample images from archives in different locations, periods of history, and from different groups of people throughout the world. This three-fold series will be developed over the next year 2020 - 2021.
Rodell Warner
Bio
Rodell Warner (b. 1986) is a Trinidadian artist working primarily in new media and photography. His works have been exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art in the 2016 Dreamlands exhibition as part of the collective video project Ways of Something, and at The National Gallery of Jamaica in the 2016 exhibition Digital, and at the 10th Berlin Biennale in 2018 in I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not #14. Rodell is a recipient of the 2011 Commonwealth Connections International Arts Residency and the 2014 summer residency at NLS Kingston, and was commissioned in 2017 to create the Davidoff Art Edition, a series of five artworks printed onto a limited edition of five thousand boxes of luxury cigars and presented and sold at Art Basel in Hong Kong, Miami, and Basel. Rodell lives and works between Port of Spain in Trinidad, Kingston in Jamaica, and Austin, Texas, in the US.