Embodied Abstractions: Identity and Representation in the Digital Era

Author

Srikar Hari, Rhode Island School of DesignFollow

Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Photography

First Advisor

Laine Rettmer

Second Advisor

Lindsay Caplan

Third Advisor

Tess Oldfield

Abstract

The digital image is a copy in motion. As it accelerates, it deteriorates.

It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, squeezed through

digital connections, resized, uploaded, downloaded, reformatted

and re-edited.

- Adapted from “In defense of the Poor Image” by Hito Steryel

With today’s digital technology, the image is no longer a stable

representation of the world, but a programmable database that

is updated in real time. It is not only part of a program, but it

contains its own operating code: the image is a program in itself.

Consequently, the image’s rhetoric has taken on factual significance:

we increasingly live in a world where images are involved in a

multitude of processes that are hidden behind their appearances on

screen and their so-called “interactivity”.

The intention behind the works presented within this thesis is

to develop processes to experiment with the malleability of our

perception of reality and an unthinking reliance on the solidity of

the photographic image and technologies producing it; creating

works as an intervention to rethink the status of the image and selfidentity

after the digital.

Recommended Citation

Hari, Srikar, "Embodied Abstractions: Identity and Representation in the Digital Era" (2024). Masters Theses. 1288.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1288

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.