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Abstract
New electronic and digital technologies enlarge both the realm of the visible and the means by which it is represented and in doing so bring into question the long-held belief of photography’s indexical relationship to the Real. This research examines the disjuncture between technologically mediated representations of land and the photograph as a direct description of a referent in the world.
The Untitled diptychs by Debra Phillips address questions of how changing technological imaging methods impact on the way we view the world by the use of Landsat images overlaid with Australian flora and other natural and artificial materials. In so doing they emphasise the fluid relationship between the representation of digital data, how we see, and how we interpret photographic information.
The significance of this research is that it positions satellite imagery of the earth from space with other materials to create new photographic images that question both the processes and methods of taking photographs while at the same time questioning the use of photographs as source material for the production of visual art works. Its value is indicated by the following: inclusion of three diptychs in Points of View: Australian Photography 1985–95, which was held at Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2005; support for Landsat imagery provided by the Australian Landsat Station, Division of National Mapping, Department of Resources and Energy; and inclusion of works in the collections of Polaroid Australia, Polaroid International, Boston, USA and AGNSW.