‘Beauty changes quickly, much as a landscape constantly changes with the position of the sun.’ (Rodin)
By recognising the close, coincidental relationship in the mid-19th century between the invention of photography and Samuel Morse’s first electric-telegraph message, this article develops some thoughts on contemporary aesthetics associated with digital images: images that are realised principally through transmission and relay on the Internet.
This research is drawn from my current research investigation of virtuality and the art of exhibition. This will entail three distinct, but inter-related strands of interdisciplinary investigation and subsequent analysis involving practice-based and research-led methodologies as well as critical theorisation. In particular, research-led practice will directly reference my curatorial design project, Remote (recently exhibited at Plimsoll Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania during June 2005). This will be complemented by practice-based research addressing the networked artworks of two artists represented in the exhibition whose respective practices involve the production of artworks that negotiate the un-fixed, refreshing nature of Webcam imagery: Susan Collins (UK) and Nancy Mauro-Flude (Tas/Neth). Finally, some preliminary thoughts that briefly outline the critical theorisation and contextualisation of this form of tele-image within the history of photographic image making will be interspersed throughout.