Plasticene

Plasticene is an alternative term for Anthropocene, the proposed epoch that follows the Holocene and designates the beginning of significant human impact on Earth. While this moniker carries numerous implications across a range of disciplines, the scholarship of this thesis project is motivated by the creation and exhibition of a body of work that investigates the materiality and physical presence of technological convenience.

Plasticene is an exhibition of four looping, digital video animations alongside two interactive sculptural installations. The video-based pieces are explorations into the medium of digital video and how it functions as a carrier of visual information. They were created through iterative manipulations of how that information is digitally compressed, organized, archived, and revealed. The sculptural works are attempts to amplify the physical presence of technologies that can often be hard to see. They were built to perform simple gestures and rely on engaging multiple senses to call into question the routine way in which we interact with different technological devices.

This paper examines the essay "The Question Concerning Technology" by Martin Heidegger as a philosophical influence for this investigation before discussing several works by other artists to frame the works in Plasticene within a contemporary context. The individual works from the exhibition are then discussed with regard to their intention, conceptual motivation, and the process of their creation.