Reality Broken

Here are some of the images from a project I’ve just begun.
I’ve been reflecting on how we learn about art history and historical figures, and how this knowledge is continually mediated and filtered through technology. In more theoretical terms, I’ve been thinking about simulacra and simulation—about the distance technology creates between us and the “real,” and about the hallucinations produced by AI.

The intersection of digital information and material objects fascinates me. These objects are undeniably real and tangible, yet their origins are fraught: mediated by unknown actors, easily manipulated, and never entirely stable.

For this project, I am photographing 3D resin prints of sculptures from museums around the world. I intentionally printed them so that they would fail—collapsing, twisting, or breaking—as a way to think about their appearance and materiality. In their failure, these objects reveal their underlying fictions. They are no longer copies of enduring stone statues; instead, they are fragile plastic forms that expose the instability of their own existence.