Beyond Manzanar

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04:16

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Beyond Manzanar is an interactive 3D virtual reality environment, a metaphorical landscape that explores political scapegoating of ethnic populations in times of crisis. The historic experiences of Japanese Americans in World War II and the more contemporary experiences of Iranian Americans during the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis form the basis for a surreal and poetic work contrasting immigrant attempts to achieve the American Dream with the demonization of entire groups as the “face of the enemy.”

Beyond Manzanar uses the unique spacial characteristics of navigable 3D virtual reality to kinesthetically locate you inside the Manzanar Internment Camp. As you explore the camp your kinesthetic sense is engaged to underscore the emotional impact of confinement. Your eyes see the passes that lead out of the valley, but you stand at the fence and can go no further. Confined within the camp, you have nowhere to go but inwards, into the refuge of memory and fantasy. At the heart of the piece lies a vision of the garden as an ancient form of virtual reality, an image of paradise created as a refuge from the outside world.

An edition of Beyond Manzanar is in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art, Silicon Valley.