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Sabah Elhadid

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 Currently, I envision working with a series of photographs and films and potentially the outcome could take the form of an artist’s book.
+----
+=== '''Concept 2:''' ===
+'''Solid Ghosts: Valuing the Remains'''
+This concept begins with the ash hills we will visit, artificial mountains formed from the waste of oil shale extraction. These are not natural features of the landscape, but industrial residues, solid ghosts of the Earth’s burned body. What once lay hidden beneath the surface has been unearthed, combusted, and left behind in skeletal form.
+'''PART 1: Material Analysis'''
+I propose a study of the ash collected from various ash hills, comparing their elemental composition to one another. This process seeks to identify variations in the ash’s physical makeup, differences shaped by geography, industrial method, or geological history. What metals, minerals, or trace materials remain in these supposedly exhausted byproducts? What stories does the composition tell about the land’s past and its transformation through human intervention?
+'''PART 2: Economic Entanglement'''
+From here, I intend to calculate the monetary value of the ash, based not on function, but on its material content. Assigning a speculative value to each sample according to present-day market prices for elements like aluminum, vanadium, or carbon, I ask:
+What is the worth of waste?
+'''PART  3: Value Across Time'''
+By situating ash within economic, environmental, and speculative frameworks, I ask:
+> How was ash valued in the past
+> How is it viewed today: economically, politically, and environmentally?
+> Could its value change in the future: as resource scarcity shifts, or technologies emerge that reframe it as useful?
+Ash becomes a material archive of human extraction and excess, and a potential commodity of the Anthropocene. Can in the future ash be traded like lithium, or reclaimed as a source of rare elements?
+'''POTENTIAL OUTCOME CONCEPT: The Future Market for Ash'''
+To extend this speculation, I propose a conceptual framework for a “Future Market for Ash” — a fictional or semi-fictional economic system where ash is bought, sold, or speculated upon like a raw material.
+This could take a form as:
+- A satirical catalog of ash-derived products from a speculative future.
+/
+- writing prices directly into the ash hills using a stick — drawing commodity values onto the ground where the ash itself lies. These temporary inscriptions will mark the speculative economic value of ash samples based on their elemental composition and current market rates.
+This imagined market highlights the absurdity of value itself, questioning how capitalism assigns worth, and what becomes valuable only when it is scarce, extractable, or technologically redefined.
+These handwritten numbers are not fixed — they will disappear with the wind, footsteps, or rain, just as market prices fluctuate and the landscapes they depend on erosion. This act becomes a ritual of valuation, performed on a ground that has already been devalued.
+Photographs of each price written on site.
+-
+=== '''Concept 3:''' ===
+Visual to Sound / The melody of the seen. (Punch Notation)
+Using a hole punch system to create music box strips based on direct visual observation.
+ex: Skyline outlines, Window patterns, Fountain silhouettes
+>The punched card becomes a score of the landscape.
+Played through a crank music box - results in a ‘haunting’ or accidental melody.
+Sound Frequency to Notation (Ghost Frequency) The melody of the unseen.
+Create a companion score—‘what the space is whispering.’
+>Using a contact mic or frequency pickup device to capture ambient sounds or sub-audible vibrations.
+>ex: The hum of pipes, Vibrations from fountains, radio waves
+Outcome could be paired scores:
+One visual score (punch card from what’s seen)
+One audio-derived score (based on hidden frequencies)
+-
 '''<u>References:</u>'''<blockquote>1- A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World by Zhao Renhui