Nicholas Sweetman

Digital Adaptations: Plausibility in Representation Beyond the Frame

The research outlined in this document explores an aesthetic philosophical problem – the making and reception of visual representations – via an interdisciplinary methodology based in material-based studio art practice. The studio work took the form of a representative exercise in which a photograph’s pictorial space is extended outwards into a larger handmade picture that continues the image’s structural logic through new
materials. Various material methods were tested and selected based on their effectiveness in continuing the picture beyond the boundaries of the photograph. This document questions the means by which an intentional visual representation, inherently requiring of the artist creative stylistic choices, is constructed and evaluated as successful. It was determined that plausibility in representation beyond the frame requires a certain adherence to the referent which is achieved through careful observation and reflection upon relationships between visual elements at every scale, as well as a delicate balancing of invention with repetition.