Post- Print: a moment of compression

Ranger, Adrian

Post- Print: a moment of compression

Master Thesis

2022

Abstract

‘Post-Print' is a practice-led project that seeks to situate the emergence of the printmaking tradition - and the notion of the print as ‘reproduction' - as a pivotal Event which once shaped a past era's perception of reality, just as the ‘digital-multiple' template today functions as a contemporary reproduction of our Being. For this project, I will draw on Slavoj Žižek's philosophical reading of the notion of ‘Event' as a framework for my central thesis: I want to expand on how the moment of compression for a technology for looking (i.e., the introduction of the printing press and the digital device) may be considered a veritable Event. In the process, I will inevitably rely on Walter Benjamin's observations in his essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' as an inspiration for my discussion of the print as reproduction and the image as Event. Finally, I happily acknowledge the influence of Guy Debord's ‘The Society of the Spectacle' (1967), to which I will bring a particular focus on the notion of ‘the mediation of being through the image' in relation to my video installation, entitled ‘Image-Machine'. The progression of creative discourse - the transition from the ‘print' to the ‘post' as the means of infinite reproduction - is the core of my project, as this shift of mediums contextualises my own retrospective mediations of the avalanche of images that characterise the present Event. Rather than mere diversions, I consider historical thinking and anachronism to be practical methodologies in my work. These retroactive interventions are themselves closely informed for me by the philosophical strategies of fragmentation, reframing and détournement variously proposed by Benjamin, Žižek and Debord. Thus, I will discuss here how these philosophical ideas have shaped the critical processes and curatorial choices within my final exhibition, ‘Post – Print', whilst also referencing and cross-examining my video installation, ‘Image Machine', and an installation of press-like object works, titled ‘Fragmented Studio'.

Keywords

fine art

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