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NATIVES: ambrotypes from the digital frontier

 
We live in a time where more people are using the digital frontier to entertain, escape and connect.  It used to be that the ambrotypist would travel the frontier in their wagons and photograph those living on the fringes of civilization.  Nearly 160 years later, I travel the new frontier of online communities, photographing those paving the way. While the inhabitants of these non-physical communities and games do not go there physically, they are often able to manipulate and control their online incarnation: creating an abject presence of themselves.  This project creates both a tangibility and history to the 'lives' of these inhabitants who, by design, do not know or have either.  The ambrotype images make a tangible manifestation of the intangible persona while simultaneously showing the death of that moment.
 
aion dr steampunk eugenia martini
Aion Dr. Steampunk Eugenia Burton Martini Portland
       

If you would like your avatar from any online community or game considered for the project
please send an unaltered screen capture of your avatar to evans@oakland.edu.