In September 1825, Major Mordecai Noah founded Ararat, “a city of refuge for the Jews” in Grand Island, New York. This turned out to be just one of many failed projects and schemes in modern history that sought to carve out a nation for the Jewish people apart from British Palestine. Mapping Ararat offers the user/participant the tools to imagine an alternative historical outcome for Noah’s Ararat and to navigate through an imaginary Jewish homeland.
Utilizing cutting-edge digital media technologies such as augmented reality and simulated cartography, this project gives Ararat a virtual chance to become the Jewish homeland that its founder had envisioned over one hundred eighty years ago. The finished project will consist of an interactive cartographic landscape set up in a 3D virtual world within a gallery installation as well as an on-site augmented reality walking tour that haunts the contemporary landscape of Grand Island. In addition, Mapping Ararat will generate the vernacular artifacts common to all modern nation-states whether money, postcards or newspapers.
Mapping Ararat is made possible through a generous grant from the Insight Development Grant program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
