Brick

3D Model

A 3D model of a brick, processed through Agisoft Metashape using 101 images shot on a Nikon D3200. It was created by Ciara Kristensen as part of the Media Studies: Digital Cultures programme. The object was acquired from some waste ground close to Maastricht’s disused Radium Rubber factory.

As part of the 21st Century virtual time capsule collection, the brick is a symbolic object. It represents the upsurge in the construction of walls as part of inter-state borders in response to the “fear of the outsider” and anti-immigration sentiment catalysed by 9/11.

Walls have become a visual staple of border studies, with the US-Mexico, Poland-Belarus and Israel-Palestine border barriers being some of today’s most well-recognised for their sociopolitically divisive power.

With over 40 such walls constructed since the turn of the century, the brick represents how, in an increasingly digitally-globalised world, our physical environments are becoming more and more segregated.