“Di.O.ram.a – Constructing a Virtual Memory, is a project that uses language as an entry point for exploring historical memory and the way it is affected by an environment increasingly mediated by new technologies. Developed through a computer mediated collaboration that evolved through various experimental avenues – including email, blogging and posts to various websites – the work extends on concerns explored during a seven week residency in Hill End, a historic gold mining village in regional NSW. It was there that Dennis Kratz became interested in the way that new technologies could be used to record and re-interpret sites heavy with nostalgia and historic value.

As the title suggests Di.o.ram.a – Constructing a Virtual Memory, uses the concept of the diorama as a framework where stories and images combine to form a fragmented narrative with multiple paths of navigation. Although the project uses historical stories as a conceptual platform, the dioramas not only talk about the past, but also combine recordings and memories of Dennis Kratz’s time spent in Hill End in 2004. In this way the past becomes the present becomes the future, each folding and re-folding into each other, a process that affects what takes place in any given frame of reference. In this context, it could perhaps be argued that all histories are the stories we make, just as the stories we make are new reference points that affect our understanding of what came before.” (Dennis Kratz 2007)

This project can be viewed online: http://www.diorama.denniskratz.com

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its funding and advisory body.