Digital renders, photographs, and composites play with the idea of physical/digital coexisting and contemplating what is considered real and what is not.
A photograph that has been digitally altered to include elements that were not present at the time of capture manipulates viewers and holds the power to invoke alternative emotions, therefore affecting their memory and reality.
Digital colouring and the restoration of old photographs and documents pushes us forward, but at the same time is questionable if it may only be manipulating us further.
To what extent do we control our own reality thus our own fate?
Take, for example, the digital designers of our time - they fabricate objects, spaces, things, stuff based on their own realities. Lived experiences or crafted ideas, the result is the same, a work of reality.
Through this experiment of playing a balancing game between the physical and digital, we play with people’s perceptions of reality in relation to their own understanding of the concept. The tangible and intangible, if we can call it that even, are tied together in such ways that have power to change a nation. A piece of art can bring hope in tough times for society to collectively overcome. A viral ad can spur the production of billions of products. A photograph of a perculiar design can have the entire internet at war.
Can anyone create such a movement? A cultural shift that relentlessly makes itself known to the world.
If you begin to create something that is very real to you, chances are you can find someone along the way that can make it a bit more real to them. The process continues until it is generally accepted that your creation is real and it lives in reality. The discourse around digital goods versus physical goods becomes less relevant as the creation speaks for itself. Does this make it any less real to you? No, because you decided something was real and that is as real as it will ever be. Everything else after that is just the rest of the world trying to make sense of your real through the lens of their real.