Substratum examines what lies beneath the surface, both within the geological foundations of Gqeberha and within the digital systems that shape how we see, store, and remember place. The term substratum refers to a layer of rock or soil beneath another, while also evoking the unseen structures that support and shape the visible world.

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Microscopic images were created from rock samples collected at locations represented in historical paintings from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum’s digital archive. These samples reveal intricate mineral formations that cannot be seen with the naked eye, echoing the concealed informational layers that constitute digital images and archival systems. Geology offers the point of continuity between past and present landscapes. While the city has changed its surface through time, the underlying rock has remained constant from the era in which the archival paintings were made to the present moment. By placing microscopic geological fragments in dialogue with their corresponding historical artworks, the project foregrounds the fragmentation and abstraction inherent in archival processes. Digital archives promise preservation, yet they often compress, reduce, and reframe the material they contain.

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This project originally existed as a series of interactive augmented reality sculptures. Viewers could encounter these digital objects in situ, aligning sculptural forms with specific physical locations. However, with the deplatforming of Adobe Aero in November 2025, the works became inaccessible overnight, leaving only their documentation. This disappearance underscores the precariousness of digital art-making and the instability that arises from relying on third party platforms whose lifespans lie beyond the artist’s control. In this context, Substratum recognises the need to shift from an insistence on preservation to an acceptance of digital art’s inherent ephemerality. Through this interplay of scale, materiality, and presence, the project reflects on what is lost, altered, or revealed when landscapes, archives, and artworks are mediated through layers of matter and code.

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All artworks on this website are freely available for download. You are invited to use the images and 3D files as they are or to reinterpret them in your own projects. In doing so, the archive of my own work becomes decentralised, enabling the works to persist and transform even if the technologies that sustain them become obsolete.