W Y S I W Y G

Abstract

The question of “what is an image” contains most of its obstacles within its utterance. “Is” – implies presence, but if what an image “is”, is present, then what is it made of? What does it look like? I only ask because I worry that we currently lack the cognitive tools to think about the sensory prosthetics which new media offer and as the present slips into the past a feeling of transition inevitably advances into simply being. For as far as I can understand it, technology and media seek invisibility by design. It is only once the tool begins to rust and slip into a past that its entire structure and meaning becomes visible. But what does this mean for a tool which seems to lack sufficient material existence to rust, break, or wear? I am of course talking about digital images and media. Added to this is the already difficult task of separating the essential qualities of our images from the ghillie suit of content it wears. The content of an image is all foreground. It covers a substrate or surface which allows for its fixity or fluidity of communication. The essence of “image” lies between the content of what is seen and the material it creates its surface out of, but it seems to evaporate once the content is removed, leaving the viewer with just the material. My time spent here at NSCAD has been focused on this foreground/background relationship of the image. Many of my attempts to turn the image around in order to see it from the back have proven unsuccessful, but as of late I have attempted a new methodology to presence the “essence” of the image.