Artist Katie's 'glitching' revitalises old sculptures

An exhibition that opened last evening in the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge is for digital media artist Katie Whyte something of a graduation show which she didn't have when she completed her course in the National College of Art & Design in Covid-stricken 2020, writes Brian Byrne.

The name of the exhibition in the McKenna Gallery is Dētrīmentum, from the Latin meaning harm, loss or damage. Katie, originally from Naas, is using unusual photographic techniques to reflect on how neglected, damaged, and often forgotten pieces of art can be 'glitched' to bring them back to a new dimension.

That sounds esoteric. And it is. But a simple explanation is that a digital photograph of a piece of sculpture, for instance, can be modified by inserting extra text into the computer code that makes up the image. This 'glitches', or corrupts the photograph to produce sometimes startling results. But instead of simply adding random text into the code, Katie types in the story behind the piece of art, so that the modified image has in some way brought the art work to a new level.

The concept behind what is now a full solo exhibition began while Katie was still in NCAD, studying Fine Art Media. She became curious, then fascinated by a number of old plaster casts of famous artworks in different parts of the campus, originally used for students to draw from. "Some were dusty, others hidden in corners, some with paint on them, and I began wondering what were the stories behind them? Not many people know about their history and I kind of wanted to know how they ended up there?"

In chasing up those stories she found a lot of 'hidden history' around the pieces, and she decided that she wanted to represent those stories in a number of ways. "I kind of stumbled on 'glitch' process. By opening up the image alongside its code, if you edit the code in real time you can see the effect it has on the photo. It can shift the image, change parts to different colours. So I inputed the 'hidden history' of the piece into the code, and the history corrupts the photograph of the statue itself. It's kind of mimicking the corruption that has already happened with the original statue." In addition to displayed photos of the results as her art, Katie also has a videos in the installation showing her actually doing the 'glitching' and viewers can see the changes actually happening.

An example of the stories she discovered relates to a plaster cast of Michelangelo's 'The Madonna of Bruges', which was hidden under a stairs. "In 1969 there was a student protest in NCAD in which two students went out to smash these plaster casts because they wanted the style of teaching to be more modern — they were tired of drawing from these casts. So that's the story I put into the code there."

The results of such code modification are unforeseeable, which seems to be part of the attraction for Katie. "It does its own thing, it doesn't matter what words you put in, you can't predict it." For the viewer, Katie is offering an opportunity to reflect on the kind of corruption the original pieces have undergone, whether by age or deliberate damage. She is very aware that the revised photograph might not be easy to understand on its own. But with the accompanying video, watching the artist working in real time, they are led through the process, and the corrupting 'story' can also be read in the video portion.

Apart from the pieces based on the NCAD plaster casts, Katie has done something similar with a number of statues around her home town of Naas, though using a slightly different process which resulted in a 'softer' outcome. "In this case I took the pictures using analogue photography, and used lesser-known stories such as the inscriptions under them to input into their code. It has a more subtle effect, based around the time-erosion of the statues and things like that."

Katie had her primary education in the Mercy Convent School, and then did second level in Newbridge College. Dētrīmentum is supported by an Emerging Visual Artists Bursary, a collaboration between Kildare County Council Arts Service and Riverbank Arts Centre. It runs until 22 December. Admission is free and the McKenna Gallery opens Monday to Friday 9.30am–5pm and Saturdays 10am–1pm. 

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