Spatially Immersive Networked Composites: A Media Archaeology of the Photogrammetric Image through Glitch Practice

This practice-based research engages new artistic production in an examination of the aesthetics of 3D imaging technologies. In particular, the research concerns the photogrammetric image and its aesthetics as encountered in art practice. Critical discourse on photogrammetry in art practice is underexplored. Where such discourse does exist, for instance in and around the work of the research and activist group Forensic Architecture, it has tended to focus on questions of functionality. This PhD proposes a new starting point for an understanding of photogrammetric representation in its own terms. The study finds the partiality of recent critical research writing on photogrammetry to be too heavily conditioned by discourses of photography. Such discussion fails to appreciate the computational mediation at the heart of photogrammetry. The photogrammetric image is one of a range of images recently emerging which are subject to heavily automated computational processes. This study sets out a 8 conceptual framework for understanding these images; photogrammetric images being one of an emergent range of ‘Spatially-immersive Networked Composites’ or ‘SiNCs’. The research outlines a way of foregrounding qualities of layering and assemblage through computation as pivotal to understanding the image. These images are created through algorithmic analysis resulting in the formation of a computational, navigable environment. The project engages sculptural practice, video, Augmented Reality, and media installations. It provokes a plurality of encounters to be enlisted into the research, thus demonstrating the necessity of art making in this research. New forms of Media Archaeological methods are employed, focusing on glitch practices that explore this evolving technology. Under certain conditions, peculiar errors and aberrations occur. These attributes reveal a glimpse of the image’s materiality by showing estimations and extrapolations of algorithms. Methods devised include generating the conditions for such errors to better understand the aesthetics of Spatially-immersive Networked Composites (SiNCs), both on screen and removed from navigable, screen-based space. The urgency of the research is evident in a digital media environment in which, through automation and algorithmic agency, image production and dissemination are changing rapidly. This research sets the conditions for discussion for emergent forms of imagery, encouraging wider and more critical engagement with the photogrammetric image and its associated, evolving technologie