The New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad (NCFRR) was one of the first railroads in the United States. The railroad only operated for 28 years; as newer, more direct railways were built, the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad was abandoned, and then without a commercial artery, the town of Frenchtown was also deserted. This obsolescence of the railroad and town is analogous to digital technological loss in its root in the movement of capital and technological change. In this project, I use the archive in conjunction with contemporary data to try and recreate a ghost without its community. In the process of this re-creation, I use techniques of glitch, loss, and layering to question the role of data, archives, and recreation in understanding place, loss and memory.

In this ongoing project, I am interested in creating a portrait of a site (Minebank Run in Parkville, Maryland), and the ways in which we can know a space through data, and the many ways through which data-driven ways of knowing will fail us. There is a contemporary inclination to assume we can truly know things (ourselves, the natural environment, economic trends, image-making techniques) through machine learning or traditional mathematical algorithms. However, these data-driven models don’t accurately model out projections or create understanding, but instead create a compressed average of the data provided.

Written and recorded during the pandemic as a way to raise money for the Annapolis Musicians Fund for Musicians (AMFM) and build community during a period in which musicians couldn't come together for the annual AMFM concert series held at the Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis. The project involved more than 70 musicians from greater Annapolis spanning several generations along with two videographers.

Donna Foster-Dotson, General Manager of the Prince George's Film Office, delivered remarks at NAIFF2022, the Nepal America International Film Festival.