Fragmented Reality

Fragmented Reality presents work that sees images only as raw data to be manipulated, breaking down digital photographs to their binary code, transforming that code through multiple technical processes, ultimately rendering new images that are no longer explicitly tied to the original material. With each translation, something is lost and something else is gained. The pictures that result from the process are suggestive of landscapes, at once unsettling and hypnotizing, placing viewers in a broad set of alternate realities, each created from hundreds of small, compounding modifications to a single piece of information.

Fragmented Reality exists in the context of a world where information is skewed at interpersonal, communal, governmental, and societal scales. In an era of dis/misinformation campaigns, tribal politics, and widespread institutional distrust, this work explores the tendencies for a “truth” to be reshaped as it moves along a chain of transmission, based on the abilities, desires, or biases of its participants. Controlling the content, expression, and dissemination of information has long been employed as a method of obtaining or maintaining power. In a world of Fragmented Reality, what happens to the way we perceive and respond with no access to a source of truth?

Photography is so often used as a means of capturing life as it is; the question is, whose version?

Fragmented Reality was created as Photography Artist in Residence at The Bascom in 2024, which culminated in 45 original works. The solo exhibition included 14 printed photographs, a user manual, and a sealed glass container of the source material.