-1 Digital Lab
Audio/video installation, Karim Fouad, 2023
The built environment in Cairo is disappearing fast. Mogasam (Arabic for animated, anthropomorphic) explores the digital landscape of Cairo as a place for conservation through creation. Architect Karim Fouad documents this change using photogrammetry techniques, 3D scans of spaces and objects, and film. His aim is to develop a democratized database of the collective memory of local people.
The process of collecting and archiving everyday objects with highly technological tools and software is crucial to Karim’s attempt at redefining the notion of heritage, collective memory, identity and history in relation to a rapidly disappearing built environment in Cairo. By engaging in these practices, Karim creates a space to think collectively about how we draw greater attention to social and environmental transformations, and how we might preserve collective memories produced in, with and by our everyday surroundings.