A Condensed History of Australian Camels combines historical research, creative writing, and copyright-free archive materials to imagine a camel bloodline that spans the entire history of Australian camels (1840–present). As the entirety of the Australian archive, history and experience is too vast for any one work to encompass, the camel is used as a consistent anchor: it is the prism through which iridescent fragments of Australia can be viewed.

Inspired by Narungga poet-scholar Natalie Harkin’s archival-poetic approach, this work takes the image text-relationship and remixes it in three ways. First, using curatorial software to imagine an interactive fictional/factional camel timeline. Second, using augmented reality to place a 3D camel carved with text. And finally, using recombinant poetics to imagine a multiplying camel caravan wandering the desert, stopping at various textual oases.

Ideally, use a PC to view the work, and a tablet/smartphone to view the augmented reality component as advised on the main menu.