Afterlives is a series of digital artworks that employs photogrammetry and 3D animation to examine global resource extraction and the myth of limitless consumption. The work brings together found objects and scanned artifacts, juxtaposing the ephemerality of contemporary technology with the vast temporal scale of geological deep time. Digital scans of rocks, boulders, and other materials captured in situ are combined with scanned assemblage sculptures made of sand, concrete, plaster, foam, resin, and e-waste. The spectacle of mass consumption makes visible the entanglement between technological systems and the natural world, collapsing distinctions between what is mined, manufactured, discarded, and preserved.

Digitized ephemera includes: Scans of natural stone from Scottsdale, Arizona, and Joshua Tree National Park; Scan of a Brother laser printer; A speculative 3D model of a fossilized Macintosh Plus. A scan of a disassembled iPhone 6S. A scan of a chalk-infused 3D print of the bust of Nefertiti using the 3D model from the #nefhack leak in 2016; Soapstone; 3D models of mobile phones from 2005 to present.

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The trajectories of strange attractors guide a swarming mass of electronic waste in its most recognizable form, mobile devices. All these devices contain precious metals and minerals, obtained through extractive practices, which often end up as waste products. A ticker runs across the screen displaying the average volume of rare earth minerals extracted annually since 2020. In the work, I question the myth of limitless consumption and the expanding volume of technology required to maintain digital dreams and desires.