Date of Award
Spring 5-18-2018
Degree Name
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
Restricted/Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Abstract
In A Document that Transcends Itself: Between Abstraction and Reality, I first present a historical analysis of photography that complicates traditional assumptions of how photographs operate in the world. Rather than functioning as merely an objective record, the photograph takes on a dual status as both a document and an abstraction from reality. The photograph’s ability to selectively decontextualize the origins from which it came from and present itself as something other than what it simply records becomes the core of my artistic practice. This paper will also discuss my conceptual investigations into how we perceive photographs when they are placed into new contexts, which inevitably change their meaning. Rather than fixed and unchanging, the photograph is fluid and multivalent in its interpretation. A Document that Transcends Itself: Between Abstraction and Reality presents a self-reflexive practice that attempts to deconstruct and understand the very nature of the medium.
Mentor/Primary Advisor
Michael Byron
Recommended Citation
Lewis, Seth, "A Document that Transcends Itself: Between Abstraction and Reality" (2018). Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers. 53.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/bfa/53
Included in
Art Practice Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Photography Commons, Theory and Criticism Commons