World Building "New Cairo"

Map of New Cairo

We as a group thought a descriptive and authentic-feeling artifact of this new culture would be some sort of damaged, rough copy of the new civilization’s city plans. As mentioned, the new Egyptians would be able to reverse engineer some technologies and retain certain skills, but we felt that (due to lack of resources) the new culture would revert back to papyrus and inaccurate drafting techniques. Thus, the map models itself after modern Cairo’s city structure, but presents certain changes and modern buildings in a rough style seen in early city plans. Logically, we used the outside sources of modern satellite images and older city plans for inspiration in creating the piece. Initially, we thought about labeling the areas so our audience would be able to understand what each area of the sketch represented and thus have a better idea how the new city was set up. However, we decided to maintain a sense of authenticity and label areas in a rough and corrupted form of Arabic as such a style would be more realistic.

Modern Cairo    Example of 18th Century Novgorod Plan Style

Desert Wear

We wanted to incorporate clothing into our project because of the unique perspective it would bring. This society, a dystopian world that decides to model its government after the inspiring success of the Egyptian empire, would have a very distinct blend of wasteland survivor and ancient religion. Pulling from the costume design of such films as Mad Max, Star Wars, and the animated short The Oceanmaker, as well as iconic tropes of Egyptian fashion, we created a mask that incorporates both worlds. It is practical in its use of keeping sand out of your mouth, but is adorned with Egyptian design made from broken pieces of lost technology.

Made From A Computer Motherboard and Linen

Model Wearing Mask

Prayer to Pharaoh

So I just converted my audio clip to a video that you can load directly into your blog, I already tested it. I think that’s easier, at least for my brain. So I’ll just email you all that video as well as the translation document that accompanies it.

In Julian Bleeker’s essay Design Fiction, he writes about how design can lead to reflection of our work. As we decided on the history and details of our fictional culture, we had to focus on creating items that properly represented this society. This particular creation is cross between the Islamic call to prayer and a fascist propaganda program. New Cairo’s self-proclaimed Pharaoh has commanded the universal worship of the Egyptian Pantheon, a theology that reveres the Pharaoh as deity himself. Spreading a gospel of quiet subjection and unquestioning devotion, the Pharaoh perverts the established order of Islam into a hybrid pseudo-religion that combines the form of the Islamic faith with the content of ancient belief. Navigating the slippery slope of religious and political correctness was challenging, but the reflective nature of the design process allowed us to properly address the issues and circumstances that inspired our creation in the first place.

Painting

Creating objects from another world can be complicated because first one has to understand the world, the more detailed the world is, the easiest it becomes to create objects pertaining that imaginary place.

Once we decided how this world came to be.I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. Every time human being have inhabited a place, they feel the necessity to create art. This forms of art are usually related to the religious beliefs, history and the social environment.

The first piece illustrates what happened before new cairo was established, and combines egyptian symbology and  modern technology, the snake representing Apep, the evil spirit of destruction and darkness.The snake is placed right next to the image of a nuclear explosion which as we know is also a symbol of destruction and death.

Both paintings are a representation of the most important aspects of this society, both religious, political and ideological.

Some of the inspiration behind the paintings are the Marsh scene tomb of menna and the facsimile of the egyptian book of the dead.