This week I took my photography to the next level of physicality. After selecting and printing ten 8X10 inkjet photos, I had to narrow it down to four to enlarge to 11X14. I then chose two of those four to display in the Watching exhibition at the Mudd Gallery. This process of preparing for an exhibition was new to me, but I found it to be interesting and fun to put together.
Choosing the final two photos was a challenging process, especially having to think about what they would look like together in the grand scheme of the exhibition. I decided to go with two highly saturated photos; the first choice was a close-up with rich detail in an indoor setting. The other was in an outdoor setting with less detail and a wider angle. I felt that these two went well together, and did a good job of representing my concept.
Seeing these photos framed and hanging in a gallery was a neat experience. Using digital photography as a tool to carry out an artistic idea has a different effect than more tactile media, such as painting or sculpture. Mary Ann Doane comments on the difference between index and icon in her article, Indexicality and the Concept of Medium Specificity. She explores the notion that we live in a “post-medium” era, arguing that the digital’s specificity is really “the annihilation of the concept of a medium. ... the digital exudes a fantasy of immateriality, in contrast to the fantasy of referentiality of the indexical” (Doane, p. 10). Doane presents interesting ideas that I found to be highly relevant to my project. Making inkjet prints from my digital photos seems to make my artwork more "real"; possibly more indexical.
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| The Shroud of Turin: Index? Icon? Or Both? |
