The South Ivan Series (dead drops) are an extension (though not formally a part) of Morehshin’s Material Speculation: ISIS series. The three heads in the series are reproductions of reliefs that were originally located at the ruins of Hatra, an ancient city in Iraq (image here) in South Ivan. Hatra was one of the ancient sites targeted by ISIS, and in 2015 a video was released of a fighter shooting these heads with an AK-47. These heads were above ground and visible in ancient times. They survived for thousands of years in the open air. Gertrude Bell photographed them in April 1911 before major excavations took place at Hatra. Each dead drop contains a USB drive, which the viewer can connect to in order to download Morehshin’s openly available research material (images, maps, pdf files, and videos) in addition to the 3D printable object file of the piece King Uthal, one of the reconstructions from her Material Speculation: Isis series.
South Ivan Series
For a long time, I’ve had imagined and carried this scene in my head in which a 3D scanner is being used, held, operated by women in a ceremony of rituals; opening paths towards the unseen; towards what’s unknown to the others. As we 3D scan the objects, as they become digital, instead of us ‘saving’ them, we let them ‘save us’. We let them save us and what belongs to us from colonial powers. Instead of the digital file of an object, we let its story, its power, to be the elements that travels towards the clouds. The kinda cloud that is unlimited, dreamy, impossible to be caught, controlled, or owned. (from the lecture performance "Physical Tactics for Digital Colonialism")
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