digital-analogue landscape

i have been thinking a lot about the merits of digital and analogue lens based media in relation to my work on landscape so i decided work through a sequence of image making which plays with aspects of both methods.

the sequence:–

digital capture of image using i-phone

digital manipulation of image using photoshop

digital (jet-ink) printing of transparencies on film (analogue)

photo exposure of analogue transparencies

analogue (hand pulled) screen printing of image in separate layers

digital-analogue image: ….so through a process of digital and analogue methods i end up with a sort of digital-analogue image – a digital capture through a physical process results with a physical image of a digital image. this kind of sits with some of the things i have been thinking about in relation to optic and haptic perception where the distant optic and the tactile haptic slide together as we experience and perceive something.

negative image: as part of playing around with the digital and analogue nature of my  image making process, i chose to work with a negative image – reversing black for white and white for black. of course for screen printing this simply means swapping the white paper for black (or black ground) and using white ink. although the image was digitally captured a negative image is part of the analogue process in photographic image making. however what also interests me about the negative image is the visual act of translation which the brain does in order to see something – a conscious translation of colours in order to understand the seen and the reality at point of capture. again this leads back to the haptic and the optic and the touched and the touching – an image in itself and an image of something else.

finished print

further reflection: the pronounced bit map dots really play into the physical properties of the image and, as i touched on last year with my prints, the layering of an image and their registration highlights the physical making and components of an image. here the capture is digital and the printing is analogue – what would the opposite be like – an analogue capture and a digital print? and need they be neat reversals, even with colour? in this image black means white and white means black but what if i throw another colour in the mix, what does that mean? i always remember looking at colour negatives and trying to imagine how the image would print if i saw red or green. i think this might be a next step. and of course this act of translation relates back to landscape and body – landscape as experience, image making and perception through a haptic and optic body… to be continued.