VIRTUAL NARRATIVES OF HIRAM BINGHAM
AND THE SUPPOSED DISCOVERY OF MACHU PICCHU2018
VR and Video Game Production
Thesis, The Design Computation Group at MIT
As part of my work at the Design Heritage lab at MIT, we collaborated with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture. We scanned vast areas of Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail. In 2018, the lab team traveled extensively to Peru, using drones and Terrestrial Laser Scanning, and trekked along the Inca Trail. A virtual twin of the site was used to create an AR application and a VR lecture during Covid's lockdown. The VR lecture allowed people worldwide to experience the historic site from their homes, providing an immersive educational tool during the pandemic. It helped preserve cultural heritage by making it accessible to a broader audience. Additionally, it facilitated ongoing research and collaboration despite travel restrictions.
Through this work, I conducted archival research on Hiram Bingham - an American explorer who attempted to locate the "lost city of Machu Picchu" in the Urubamba Valley jungles. He was an Indiana Johns type with a travel journal, a map, a drawing notebook, and the first Kodak expedition camera. As a result of Bingham's meticulous documentation, I was able to reconstruct the journey through the media. Together, the different media lend different perspectives to Bingham's exploration- a questionable discovery of a place that was actually inhabited when he arrived. Bingham's findings are controversial, showing he did not truly "discover" Machu Picchu but rather brought it to the Western world's attention. His removal of artifacts and the subsequent disputes over their return have sparked debates about cultural heritage and ownership.