traces
brief
I focused on traces of traces. On urban interventions and natural processes, traces that have been removed or disappeared over time, leaving new traces behind. Painted-over graffiti, scraped-off stickers, walls with marks of climbing plants.
Using Procreate and Photoshop, I reconstructed these erased traces, making them visible again. I deliberately chose to vary between forensic reconstruction and speculative fiction. Some restorations are intentionally 'wrong'. This playful inaccuracy exposes the difficulty of objective reconstruction and the inherently vague nature of traces. It also questions who controls urban narratives: whose traces are preserved, whose erased?
The interactive map documents my research process itself as a trace. GPS metadata reveals my path through the city and lets the user compare present state and speculative past.
specifications
idea
The idea of restoring traces came while I was walking around the city to do research and collect traces for the assignment. Many traces like graffiti and trash are unwanted and get removed, but this act itself often leaves a new trace behind. This caught my eye and I wanted to explore this further by reconstructing erased traces.
credits
process
