Convergence

Convergence is a project exploring the way our various digital realities and personalities permeate into our immediate, actual reality. The final piece is a projection onto paintings which I think illustrates translation of the digital world to the physical world well. I have become increasingly aware of the way we manipulate images and use filters to cover and conceal aspects of the original, which we then use to curate and display our lives in the digital sphere. I wanted to convey this ‘beautification’ of images through initial collages, by combining and layering images together so that they’re rendered unrecognisable and incomplete –a completely new image, their original form hidden and at the same time being revealed beneath veils of concealment which in this case is geometric coloured paper cut outs and structured vertical strips of differing imagery. 

The collages then developed into a very experimental video I created of my documentation of various imagery being manipulated and edited in a similar fashion each time, changing a specific aspect of the image in a specific order such as changing the exposure first then the brightness then the tone of the image, then ultimately documenting the erratic way I used the ‘heal’ tool which copied and pasted a circular area of the image that I chose to select. I used this as a way of layering and concealing parts of the image as well as to create a completely different version of the image that I began with - just like how our online personas are created and curated; parts of our lives selectively chosen to be exhibited or otherwise hidden. The paintings are tilted, the projection layer not aligned, intended to create this effect of a filter, like the ones used on Snapchat, which in this case is the painting sliding off of or away from the images being projected, as if it’s been ‘swiped’ off (referring to the action of adding or removing filters). It’s also a testament to going beyond pictorial space and the conventional straight edge.