The eyewitness of digital media

This research will examine the impact of digital media on representation, language and information through the creation of digital artworks that address the condition of ‘the spectacle’. Beginning with an analysis of the ‘overexposed city’ as proposed by Paul Virilio and manifest in those works, it will develop a greater understanding of the impact of the digital upon vision, as well as the failure of ethical frames of reference through the operations of ‘derealisation’. The ‘filmic’ aspect of these concerns will be explored in relation to Gilles Deleuze’s writing on cinema, in order to identify within filmic practice the means of addressing the ethical void that Virilio identifies with the rise of ‘cinematism’. Deleuze’s theory of cinema will also be used to clarify the mode of filmic practice developed in the artworks as part of this research, which allows for the ‘re-thinking’ of the image. This methodology will be further considered in relation to Giorgio Agamben’s account of the witness and testimony. Agamben’s discussion will assist in the articulation of a position asserted by the artworks in regard to modes of appropriation, such that the artist is engaged in a ‘unitary-difference’ with/as the witness, in order to provide testimony. Finally, the role of the artworks in re-establishing the potential for a field of ethical coordinates will be established.