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Additional Information about (AR) Slavery Trails
Slavery Trails is a site-specific AR Sculpture series created by Artist Marcus Brown to virtually mark areas where enslaved people were held, sold, and worked in the United States. Slavery Trails is the first national mixed Reality decentralized Memorial in the United States that uses art to address the lack of representation of enslaved people.
The first interactive Augmented Reality (AR) sculpture exhibits are Marcus Brown slave artist No. and The Solomon Northup exhibit .
The exhibits present figures representing enslaved peoples during the chattel slavery period in the United States. The Marcus Brown slave artist No. series is meant to fund the projects development and demonstrate the financial value attached to a human being. The artist offers his likeness up for sale for the modern day price of an enslaved person from the 1840s era. This project is self-funded by the artist Marcus Brown.
The Solomon Northup Exhibit is meant to provide representation of the historical author and other enslaved people. This grouping of people represents the 41 people found on the Brig Orleans manifest with Solomon Northup in April of 1841.
How to Experience the AR Slavery Trails ?
1. Download the Ar Adobe Aero App on your smart device using the following address:
Adobe Aero app
2. You do not need to sign up or sign in. The app just needs to be on your device/phone/tablet.
3. Open your camera on your smartphone and scan the QR code labeled AR Slavery Trails.
4. Once the Augmented Reality (AR) Slavery Trails Project loads, “anchor” it to the plaque.
5. Tap the AR enslaved people to activate the music and animations connected to the project.
About the Marcus Brown slave artist No. series / Artist Statement
The first series of sculptures are self-portraits designed to present myself as a product. As a multimedia artist and fabricator who works many types of traditional crafts. I chose to create physical iron objects to in my performances and also to gain a better understanding of the brutality experience by the enslaved. I forged an iron collars using steel and I played my Alto-Saxophone to create sound samples. These samples are played by tapping my AR self-portraits. In many instances the enslaved blacksmiths were and instructed to make irons for other enslaved people. Also, if an enslaved person was able to provide musical entertainment they were also instructed to perform.
The Marcus Brown slave artist No. series are custom AR sculptures and digital prints. Each of these are a custom sound interactive AR sculpture model and a 16” x 16” digital archival print made of 100% recycled premium grade aluminum available for sale for the price of an enslaved person during the 1840-1845 time period. These sound interactive AR sculptures are self portraits just like the ones found at the Esplanade Ave & Chartres St.New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade historical marker in New Orleans. The Marcus Brown slave artist No. series pricing is based on data presented in the paper titled Measuring Slavery in 2020 Dollars by Samuel H. Williamson and Louis P. Cain.
I created these to help people visualize figuratively the concept of human beings as commodities. In the New Orleans French Quarter it is hard to find a structure that has not been touched or built by enslaved hands. America needs the ghosts of slavery to remind us of how our nation was really built. The idea behind the infusion of new age technology with history and art is to get the attention of today's audiences who may not know the truth or who may be uncomfortable with it. America did not pull itself up by its bootstraps. It was built on stolen land with enslaved labor. Just as there are people living today who have benefitted and inherited the spoils of free labor, descendants of those laborers are still marginalized, and their contributions diminished. The Augmented Reality (AR) Slavery Trails are a way of connecting the public to the lost stories of the enslaved.
Future exhibits of Slavery Trails
Passage ( middle Passage) Location: Moonwalk New Orleans French Quarter
Passage is a musically interactive mixed reality sculpture trail based on slave ships and enslaved people. The artwork titled Passage or Middle Passage is a geotagged musically interactive augmented reality (AR) sculpture installation series based on slave ships and enslaved peoples. The title Passage or Middle Passage refers to the section of the historical triangular trade route between Europe, Africa and the Americas. It allowed for the forced transport of African slaves from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Most of the African slaves brought to the Americas at that time were transported through this route on ships in extremely dehumanizing conditions. One of the main ports used for slave trade was in New Orleans. Brown designed the series to educate the public about the Middle Passage and the treatment of the enslaved. Music and singing was one element which could not be controlled by the captors. The artwork focuses on taking the public through the tightly packed slave deck areas using Augmented reality (AR) as well as his own custom proximity based musical interactive technology to tell a story of the Middle Passage.
Thank you Dr. Marcus Rediker for your encouragement and being an advisor on these projects Ship Drum (film), Machine Noire, AR Slavery Trails , and Passage.
The MeasuringWorth Foundation
Slavery Trails Exhibit 1
New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE
Location: Esplanade Ave & Chartres St New Orleans, LA 70116
(front side) In 1808, the US Congress abolished the international slave trade, contributing to a significant increase in the domestic slave trade, or the trafficking of human beings within the boundaries of the United States. During the fifty-seven years that followed, an estimated 2 million men, women, and children were separated from families and forcibly moved by slave traders and owners. The largest numbers were brought from the Upper South to the Lower South via overland and water routes. New Orleans was the center of this trade, resulting in more than fifty documented sites. More enslaved people were sold here from slave pens, public squares, government buildings, church properties, city taverns, private residences, auction houses, and even ballrooms of luxury hotels than anywhere else in the US.
(back side)
Within a one-block radius of this marker were the New Orleans offices, showrooms, and slave pens of over a dozen slave trading firms, including Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard, Hope New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade Marker (<i>back side</i>) image. Click for full size. Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, May 11, 2018 2. New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade Marker (back side) Hull Slatter, John Hagan, Joseph Bruin, and others. Their networks, which undergirded the antebellum economy, stretched from Norfolk, Baltimore, Louisville, and Memphis to New Orleans, Natchez, Galveston, Pensacola, and beyond. Learn more
Want to get to know more slave trade sites in New Orleans?
NEW ORLEANS SLAVE TRADE MARKER TOUR
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