Achi news desk-
in March last year, two men in tracksuits, wearing hockey masks and carrying matching laundry bags, went to the British Museum. Just outside, the police on patrol asked the two strange men where they were going. “We’re going to the British Museum to loot stolen goods,” said one of them. “Well, we’ll see you there then!” replied the police officer.
But no arrests were made, as no indictment took place. What happened was a “digital heist” of one of the British Museum’s most famous objects, an artefact which, according to Egyptologist Monica Hanna, is a “symbol of western cultural power” and “of British imperialism”: the Rosetta Stone.
The heist involved the pair, along with Hanna, who they had invited there, going to the glass where the stela is displayed and making detailed 3D scans of it on an iPad. This effectively gave the “raiders” a digital copy of the artifact from 196BC which was perfectly legal. But their aim was not just to digitize the Rosetta Stone, but to return it to its origin, Rashid (or Rosetta), Egypt, using location-based augmented reality (or Geo AR), so that local people could see the object from their smartphones.
The two men behind the masks were Chidi Nwaubani from London and Ahmed Abokor, a product designer and creative consultant, respectively. Together they form Looty, a radical “artist” and tech company founded in 2021 that seeks to “loot” cultural artifacts stolen from museums. First by 3D scanning them, then by sharing them as revamped digital artworks via non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
As NFTs provide public proof of ownership of digital files, Looty’s approach to “stealing” and redistributing artworks aims to challenge the lack of transparency and fading relevance often associated with institutions founded in the colonial era. After the British Museum scandal last August, when around 2,000 artefacts were reported to have been stolen due to poor record-keeping, revealing that around half of its collection of around 8m objects was never fully catalogued, the museum established in the 18th century once again facing a public account.
“They don’t care about the artifacts, they care more about the fact that they have them,” Abokor said. “It’s all about power again.”
From organizing one of the main interactive exhibitions at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale to setting up an installation at NFT Paris this February, Looty is taking the art and technology world by storm. In November, they were selected in the Special Projects category at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. Continuing their Rosetta stone heist project, Abokor had made a copy of it with fabric and rope wrapped around it. Visitors could scan the stone using a QR code included in the artwork’s description, triggering an animation on their phones and an augmented reality (AR) experience that showed the Rosetta Stone in its original size and glory.
Nwaubani and Abokor’s partnership goes back some 20 years when they met at university in London, bonding over their creative spirit and shared African heritage. Nwaubani was raised mainly around Guildford and developed an early interest in technology by “coding computer games onto floppy disks”. But he experienced intense racism at school, leading his father, a university professor originally from Nigeria, to change his school.
“You can’t be a black person living in Europe and not have some level of political affiliation. You are already politicized by what happens to you growing up,” Nwaubani said.
Born in Somalia, Abokor was just 12 months old when his family moved to Sweden and ended up living in a refugee camp. “Coming from war, understanding politics and knowing what’s going on around us is ingrained in us,” he said.
They both remember that when they were young, their parents would offer “alternative” history lessons from European museums, explaining where objects “really” come from. This helped develop their curiosity about Africa’s rich and often misrepresented history, and taught them that power and politics are an integral part of art.
It was around Christmas 2020 that Nwaubani got the idea for Looty for the first time; the group’s name refers to a Pekingese dog owned by Queen Victoria that was looted by British soldiers from the Summer Palace in China in 1860. He read a report that revealed that 90 to 95% of Africa’s cultural heritage is preserved by museums large outside of Africa. Inspired by the rise of NFTs, Nwaubani came up with a project “around the idea of: ‘Can you steal back something that’s already been stolen?'”
The technology that would help bring this concept of digital looting and recovery to life is Lidar, a form of 3D scanning that stands for “light detection and ranging” and uses safe laser beams to the an eye to “see” the world in 3D. Lidar allows Looty to digitally record artifacts and render them in 3D. They are then available on the blockchain as NFTs and “anti-reimaginings of the originals” according to Nwaubani – bypassing bureaucratic processes that prevent people from developing countries from seeing these works of art in person face
Before the Rosetta, their first project was with the Benin bronze, another disputed colonial artefact scattered across western museums. Looty released a limited collection of 25 NFTs of the bronze based Oba (king) head looted from the British Museum. Every sale contributes 20% to the Looty Fund, which gives grants to young African artists, especially from Nigeria.
What they discovered was that the museum world was still adapting to the era of mass digitization. On its website, the British Museum says it allows 3D photography and printing of objects for non-commercial use, and asks visitors to “be considerate and respectful” of “culturally sensitive” objects.
“When the British attacked the kingdom of Benin [in 1897] there were no laws against that, or they would create a law around it to make it legal,” said Nwaubani. “Now we’re in an age where there are no laws against what we do.”
“And technology moves faster than the law as well,” adds Abokor.
It’s a dilemma facing cultural institutions in the digital age: while many artists wish to use technology to make culture more accessible and, in Looty’s case, less western-centric, museums are trying adapt without losing their ability to attract audiences.
For Berlin-based artist Oliver Laric, who has digitized the collections of a dozen museums across Europe, museums must realize that there is an “urgent need for alternatives” to central cultural heritage institutions.. “There are many fears based on false legal assumptions, but also fears of some kind of loss as a result of accessibility”, he said. “When talking to museums I often brought up a very simple example: no copies or merchandise will stop people from wanting to see the Mona Lisa in person, rather the opposite”.
Although the restoration work in Europe may seem far removed from the interests of people on the ground in formerly colonized nations, heritage experts say these issues are significant for many in the global south.
“People are already thinking about how the return will fit into the local economy, and how recovery and repatriation can create job opportunities,” says Monica Hanna of the city of Rashid, Egypt, where the Rosetta Stone can now be seen in augmented reality. installed using a QR code through apps like Snapchat.
With quiet but innovative energy, Nwaubani calls the vision of Steve Jobs with the Pan-Africanism of Chinua Achebe. Looty’s motto is “the future awaits your return” – to spark “a constant dialogue between the past and the future”, and establish Looty as the museum’s “anti-imagination”.
These days, we are less likely to see the pair “looting” the British Museum. Instead they are busy preparing their next interactive exhibition somewhere between Europe and Africa. Although they feel they have achieved a lot over the past three years, they say there is still a long way to go. Like technology, culture is always changing, and both “spoilts” not only embrace innovations but also dream of those yet to come.
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The post ‘Can you bring back something that’s already been stolen?’: how radical art duo Looty returned the Rosetta Stone – The Guardian appeared first on Canada News Media.
