Until I'm Gone, an examination of abstracted digital Self Portraiture

‘Until I'm Gone, an examination of abstracted Self Portraiture’ was formulated to explore the core research question that was part of the original AHRC bid for my 2007 Creative Research Fellowship: ‘In what ways will High Resolution Imaging change the work produced in the convergence of art and visual technologies and consequently, our experience of that work?’ To answer this question I formulated the idea of ‘Quantum Resolution’ which proposed that audience immersion deepens with quantum as opposed to quantitative increases of resolution – that is the effects of deeper immersion would be felt with larger increases of resolution rather than incremental increases of resolution. Initially I formulated 3 practice as research portfolios as differing strategies to uncover the effects (if any) of increased resolution. These three were a) to examine everyday moving images of the world immediately around oneself, b) examine iconic moving images of the world and c) examine human portraiture and by way of this examine ideas around the human gaze. I argued that each work would be a building block in a developing argument to examine my hypothesis and that all of the works would be presented together in a major exhibition as the overall thesis – this occurred in December 2010 in collaboration with University of Westminster in their London P3 Gallery. ‘‘Until I'm Gone, an examination of abstracted Self Portraiture’ arose as a response to the research I’ve been doing in my 3rd Portfolio of works on human portraiture and the human gaze which had as its base idea to investigate the re-presentation of the human portrait in front of an iconic object or landscape. In this development I created superimposed images of myself through the filter of the iconic background. The images were obtained in Bergen, Norway of a trip through a fjord. The narrowing topography and effect of this was to confine the sense of self as we went and this work responds by evoking a journey across the River Styx – in our ego devoted present, the individual is their own navigator and boatman. Portraiture and self-portraiture share an author and a gaze, but in gazing at oneself certain transformational imperatives affect the way the human self represents itself. Until I’m Gone explores those imperatives by abstracting the issues around the affects of increased resolution, where clinical representation by the medium is supplanted by equal resolved images that bare no relation to ‘reality’. This effectively locates the work in both my 3rd and 1st portfolios. In exhibition, this work is displayed on a 42 inch plasma screen and is listened to on headphones which have the effect of drawing the audience deeper into the experience. Surround the plasma are 6 x 42 inch aluminum prints derived from the cinematographic data.