Rayane Jemaa’s research project Is This the Middle East? takes these games as its source material. Jemaa captures and categorises various objects from the games such as cars, statues, minarets and rugs, building an archive of middle eastern culture, as portrayed through (western) video games. Using an unconventional photogrammetry technique, Jemaa takes hundreds of screenshots in-game, in order to extract and re-build the objects in 3D. The objects begin to tell a story, of how the Middle East is perceived in the west, of the narratives and plots which are built around the region and, through collecting these objects, Jemaa questions the Western appetite to consume a traumatic vision of the region.  

Most of the objects in Jemaa’s archive have the janky outlines of early computer graphics, the edges are rough but the surface lacks detail and is distorted. The middle east in these games lacks the richness and nuance of the original.  

RAYANE JEMAA is a British-Tunisian artist, visual researcher and designer. His work investigates how computational tools such as game engines, 3D scanners, and satellite imagery produce and circulate images of place, and whose cultures get flattened or distorted in that process. Through post-photographic practices, installation, and print, he makes visible the politics embedded in seemingly neutral digital systems. He graduated from ECAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne) in 2021 and has since shown his work internationally at institutions including Fotocolectania (Barcelona) and Musée d’Art de Pully. He was a finalist at the 2022 Swiss Design Awards for his project Is This the Middle East?

ISABEL WALTER is a writer and curator based in Amsterdam. She currently works as Assistant Curator at Foam, and Editorial Assistant at Foam Magazine. She is particularly interested in art which expands the technical and conceptual boundaries of photography, moving image and new technologies.