Arts collective Looty used scanning and NFT technology to ‘repatriate’ the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum. But experts say caution is needed around digitisation of contested artefacts, as Aimee Dawson reports.
One hopes not to find loot at an art fair these days, but at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London in October, one of the stands was focused on just such objects. The collective Looty uses digital technologies to increase accessibility to art and heritage, and at 1-54 it presented its project Return Rashid! (2023), in which the group “executed a daring digital heist at the British Museum”. Their target was the Rosetta Stone—originally known as the Hajar Rashid—which was taken from Rashid, Egypt, by the French in 1799 and later handed over to the British by the defeated French in a surrender deal.
Looty utilised light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology to record detailed scans of the tablet, and the resulting 3D renderings were then used alongside a geolocation-based augmented reality (AR) platform to place the digital object in Rashid. “This innovative use of technology allowed for one of the world’s first-ever digitally repatriated artworks to be placed back in its original physical realm,” Looty says on its website...Keep reading on The Art Newspaper.
One hopes not to find loot at an art fair these days, but at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London in October, one of the stands was focused on just such objects. The collective Looty uses digital technologies to increase accessibility to art and heritage, and at 1-54 it presented its project Return Rashid! (2023), in which the group “executed a daring digital heist at the British Museum”. Their target was the Rosetta Stone—originally known as the Hajar Rashid—which was taken from Rashid, Egypt, by the French in 1799 and later handed over to the British by the defeated French in a surrender deal.
Looty utilised light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology to record detailed scans of the tablet, and the resulting 3D renderings were then used alongside a geolocation-based augmented reality (AR) platform to place the digital object in Rashid. “This innovative use of technology allowed for one of the world’s first-ever digitally repatriated artworks to be placed back in its original physical realm,” Looty says on its website...Keep reading on The Art Newspaper.