Ben Patrick

Manuscripts bear witness to the process of creation and transmission. The shifting landscapes of our history are preserved in their pages, and these pages are preserved in the collections of our libraries. My work seeks to further preserve these compositions through a conceptual, philosophical, and visual détournement of the original manuscript that reconstitutes it for a new meaning in our present and its future.

My process of deconstruction begins with a high resolution tiff file from a scan of a manuscript preserved in a private collection at a library. Using design software I layer, format, collage and manipulate color to construct a new composition. I seek to reroute or hijack the original illuminations with the digital luminescence of pixels and color from an inkjet printer. In this process, there is an admiration and respect for religious and historical manuscripts. There is also an appreciation of the complexity of the archive and the archival. Most importantly, there is a recognition of how language and relationships have shifted in our present digital culture and how this digital multitude has influenced the meaning of our existence. I love the irony and unending paradoxes in the choice of applying digital illu...

Pratt Institute, Master in Science, Art and Design Education,

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