Journal article in the The California Printmaker: The Journal of the California Society of Printmakers. The invention and subsequent development of the printed image has changed the way in which we learn, see and describe the world around us. Our preoccupation with viewing the world through its image has created an environment of two-dimensional projections unfolding from three-dimensional beginnings. Within the Printed Reality group the interplay between image and object is not a seamless transition but one of artifice, theatre. Here the recorded image functions as a backdrop, a stage prop positioned and presented in such a manner that we are readerly accepting of its fictional role. The performance emanates through the recording of edges and folds, casting both shadows and omitting reflections from an external world, a reality not of our own but somewhat more representative of our own.The Printed Reality Exhibition presents photographic images by seven different artists within a gallery instillation setting. The exhibition was conceived as a format for considering the relationship between print and the Internet in the era of Photography 2.0. The overlapping of the electronic image and printed presentation in The Printed Reality exhibition draws upon further associations with the use of digital platforms as a means to disseminate physical artefacts within museums, galleries and educational institutions.The Printed Reality is a collection of imagesgenerated by users of the photo-sharing website Flickr.Curated by Paul Laidler, the almost five hundred photographsin this virtual gallery document the very real waysthat we interact with the printed image in our daily lives.An exhibition of projected images from The PrintedReality was presented during the 2009 Impact conferenceat the University of West England
