Title: No Image.

William Scheel

Subtitle: Within the information age, the fictions we choose to follow may hold greater power than truth itself. How does it feel to step inside the vastness of the internet?

In a world increasingly consumed by technology, screens and overstimulation, our perception of the natural world and truth becomes distorted. No Image. explores the complicated relationships between organic beauty and artificial seduction. What is real or unfiltered amid our constant indulgences? The innate seductive nature of plants and the omnipresent glowing screens that fill our consciousness represent the tension between human instinct and artificial influence. As humans we have always been mesmerized by the vibrance of flora, but now we find ourselves equally captivated by the saturated intensity of digital displays. 

What is the price for our convenience? Where does reality end, and simulation begin? How do photographs function in a world oversaturated by them?

We are a society addicted to visual imagery, constantly searching for fast pleasure. Evolution has coded us to have an uncontrollable attraction towards plants. The vivid array of colors have a seductive, primal connection that is felt deeply. Yuval Harari writes “Our DNA still thinks we're in the Savanna” (Harari 46). Even though we inhabit cities, our bodies' instincts are programmed to survive in the wild. Companies specifically design apps containing advanced algorithms used to keep you suctioned to your screen. How do we interact with and perceive nature in an increasingly digital age?

Radiant Tree, Inkjet Print, 2024

The digital world, even in its simplest forms, has infiltrated and transformed our perceptions of the natural world. These images of plants are an attempt to express this distortion and shift in our relationship to the natural world. I often utilize the flash to project an uncanniness onto the subject. The flash compresses a 3D world into a 2D space where objects are seemingly pasted on top of one another. The flash increases saturation, which is edited further to expose a feeling of fabrication as if it were made of plastic. The loss of detail in the highlights helps illustrate a dreamstate surreal effect.

I am using a controlled and carefully constructed color palette to suggest an unnaturality towards the flora. The highly saturated glowing greens radiate off of the paper allowing the leaves to feel processed. The colors in these images start to seep into one another as if it's coloring outside the lines. This bleeding, due to over saturating, alludes to the manipulation felt within modern media. These illustrate the tensions between beauty and toxicity, emphasizing a feeling of both danger and attraction. 

Sara Cwynars’ coloration serves as inspiration. She once was quoted saying “I was thinking about many different ways color is used to create desire or to trick people” (Cwynar). Her body of work Rose Gold looks at how the hues are used by corporations to shape the consumers desires. Cwynar references Apple and explains how their use of rose gold, a scientifically synthesized color, was created to attract and sell products. Her use of dull pop colors accentuate a feeling of nostalgia similar to tv advertisements from the 70’s - 90’s.

There's an intentional artificiality within my color scheme similar to that of modern advertisements meant to capture and sell. While these photographs attract some viewers, others feel disillusioned by them because they present a false reality. The interweaving branches, leaves, and stems within this flattened plane provide a psychedelic bait to lure and distract. These images further my exploration into what is perceived through screens, and how this most likely isn't a true reflection. 

Berry Tree, Inkjet Print, 2023 (LEFT) 

Contemporary Floral Arrangements 4 (Two Monochromatic Color Schemes), 2014, by Sara Cwynar (RIGHT)

Berry tree, inspired by my childhood where I was constantly warned by my parents to not eat berries off of bushes. This instilled an insatiable curiosity in me, they tempted me. Was it poisonous? Would it kill me? Or perhaps it would pop in my mouth and burst with intense sweet flavor.

I've later identified the plant as a Pyracantha.

“Pyracantha are classified as Pomes. The pulp is safe for human consumption, but it is insipid, and the seeds are mildly poisonous as they contain cyanogenic glycosides (as do apples, plums, cherries, and almonds). Seeds that are chewed and crushed while raw will release cyanogenic glycosides, and can cause mild gastro-intestinal problems when eaten in large enough quantities” ("Pyracantha." Wikipedia).

This fascination with what's edible or not has evolved into questioning the chemical makeup of everything I eat. 

Food is the largest consumer good. Without it, life for humans would cease to exist therefore Its necessity allows mega corporations to prosper greatly. Once, we needed to work laboriously for food, but now we go to our local deli for a midnight sugar coated snack that's likely far higher in calories than anything naturally occuring. Americans have allowed themselves to over indulge on fatty, salty, sugary foods. Yuval Harari explains “A typical forager 30,000 years ago had access to only one type of sweet food – ripe fruit. If a Stone Age woman came across a tree groaning with figs, the most sensible thing to do was to eat as many of them as she could on the spot, before the local baboon band picked the tree bare. The instinct to gorge on high-calorie food was hard-wired into our genes” (Harari 55).

Knowing this, food companies have specifically engineered things like fruits, chips, energy drinks and candies in the hopes to hook us for life. Fast food is easy to obtain, fast, and cheap. Health experts continuously warn us about dieting and to watch what we consume, but is it too late for a society that's already addicted? 

“In the early 21st century, the average human is far more likely to die from bingeing McDonalds than from drought, Ebola or an al-Qaeda attack” and “half of humankind is expected to be overweight by 2030” (Harari 2, 6).

French Fries, Inkjet Print, 2024

 In the absence of a logo, the iconic McDonald's fries are undeniably recognizable and identified by the viewer. A larger than life size scale pushes a feeling of consumption, forcing the viewer to be engulfed by the gluttony. The red and yellow hues that are repeated within this image are iconic with the McDonalds franchise. There are an abundance of fries scattered as if it's an explosion, filling every inch of the frame. The brown paper bag shows signs of grease and the fries twinkle of sodium, which either lure or deter the viewer. 

In French Fries, we see a push and pull between desire and repulsion.

Screens Are Everywhere

Phones, tablets, computers, tvs, cameras, car dashboards, vapes, boats, buildings, taxis, movie theaters, restaurants, bars, baseball games, classrooms and concerts (to name a few) have all been infiltrated by screens. We are absorbed by a never ending cycle of images. What does it mean to create an image in a world where every image has seemingly already been made? Or in a world where AI can make anything we can program it to do? What happens to visual language when we can’t trust what we see? What happens to the truth? 

  No Image. speaks to these ideas. The photograph was created in an attempt to find something that felt as if it were a glitch. The image presents the back of my camera whilst the memory card was empty, hence why it displays “No Image.” The white letters shimmer dazzlingly. The chromatic aberration of the pixels reveals you're looking at a screen while the dense black background creates a void. The final print is contained within a black frame with plexi-glass, accentuating a mirroring black hole effect. Once a viewer stands face to face with the image, it reflects back a distorted ominous impression. This feels as if I had an image framed and hung traditionally then—poof, a glitch occurred and the image vanished. 

The image itself is an oxymoron, as it's quite literally a photograph that says “No Image.” During the production of this piece I found myself drawn to Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Here Magritte reminds us that images and words aren't in fact the real thing. While they may remind us or represent these things, the truth is revealed that reality and representation are different. 

No Image., Inkjet Print (LEFT)

Ceci n’est pas une Pipe, René Magritte, 1929, oil on canvas. (RIGHT)

Pixels are the DNA of our new society. Through this process of re-photographing my screen I was able to reveal the pixels. The magic happens when you look from afar and the image is legible, but as you approach the print the details become short lines of color. Red, green and blue is all that makes up the image. It's all that makes up any digital image.   

Through this process of re-photographing my screen, I was able to reveal the pixels themselves. The magic happens when you look from afar: the image is whole, legible, coherent. But as you approach the print, the illusion breaks down. Details dissolve into short lines of color—pure abstraction. Red, green, and blue—that’s all it is. That’s all any digital image is made of. From this limited palette, entire worlds are built.

Social media is designed to keep you hooked. Just now, a text from a friend led to 20 mindless minutes on Instagram. When I finally put my phone down, my body still craved more. Why is it so hard to stop? We've lost the ability to focus on long-form tasks, overwhelmed by an endless stream of short-form content. Cute puppy—scroll. Disaster—scroll. Conor’s in Miami—scroll. The dopamine loop never ends. 

In curating the installation of my work, my intention was to mimic what it feels like to step inside the overwhelming, fragmented universe that is the internet. Is it infinite excitement and chaos or perhaps a desolate void? 

The photographs appear to be installed at random, with few clear connections. In order to further the obscurity of the work, I found myself printing photographs of large objects small, and small subjects large. An image of a  toilet (4 inches) can be seen high up on the wall, directly opposing all prior notions.  Missiles, later engineered into the first rocket ships, are seen as a tiny (3 inch) print shown along-side a ladybug printed to the same scale. Ladybug is accompanied by an obscured hand stretching about 40 inches. This scale shift deepens the supernatural esthetic.

Some images are hung on the very top of the wall, and others almost touch the ground. Largely inspired by Wolfgang Tillmans, my prints vary in a multitude of hanging methods. Some in frames, matt boards, binder clips, or adhered directly to the wall. 

The use of binder clips presents the work with a tactility and liberty. Some of the images were left without clipping the bottoms. This allowed for a freedom of movement—the paper shifting gently in the wind as someone passed by. I’m drawn to the way it breathes with life, contradicting the stillness of a traditional photograph. It animates the image, giving tactility to the digital. 

Ladybug, Missiles, No Image. instillation, 2025

I utilized the architecture of the space in a multitude of ways. Again, influenced by Tillmans attention to the environment, I hung an image on a pillar of a tree's trunk covered with lantern flies. This alludes to the similarity in the man made and natural shape of both. The french fries hung on the backside of a door located within a small tunnel shaped coreadoor, as if you were stepping into the bag itself. I referenced ideas of distortion by physically bending a print around the square edge of a pillar. This piece is a photograph of the printer printing an image that's seen in the exhibition, breaking the fourth wall. 

Sam in Diani, Sam Printing, No Image. Instillation, 2025

French Fries, No Image. Instillation, 2025

Armed with Shitty Red—a pocket-sized digital point-and-shoot from 2012—I’ve built this body of work around the idea of using an obsolete, unreliable camera. Mass-produced and cheaply made, it was never meant to be precise. The shutter lags unpredictably, the screen often inverts itself, and the autofocus and exposure are consistently off. I shoot blind, with almost no control.

But that’s the point. Shitty Red is small, portable, and worthless—except for the images it captures. I bring it everywhere without fear of loss or damage. If your camera is more valuable than your pictures, you’re doing something wrong.

This process forces me to act on instinct. I move quickly—one shot, then gone. No overthinking. If it doesn’t come out, that’s life. And when it does, it feels like luck, or something deeper: a glimpse of the subconscious.

This photographic style is directly related to how we snap and post millions of photos without dominion. 

Yuval Noah Hararis’ books, Sapiens; A Brief History of Yesterday, and Homo Deus; A Brief History of Tomorrow, to which I have been quoting, have been nothing short of influential in the process of unravelling this body of work. 

Sapiens;

Harari expressed the dangers we face as a society today, all while looking back at world history from an unfiltered, open minded approach. Through this comparison of religions, political systems, and societal norms, Harari opened my mind to the reality of life. The truth is that everything we know and believe beyond biology and physics, is made up. Harari speaks on temptation and desire and relays this back to evolutionary needs. Through this reading my brain became rewired. I felt an immense release of stress and pressures that had been bestowed upon me since birth. 

Homo Deus;

In this book Yuval speaks on where he believes humans will be pushed next. He explores ideas of how AI and computers will be integrated into life more frequently. What happens when we become more than human? Our brains are advanced algorithms and with the addition of brain chips and other devices Harari speaks on how humans may continue to evolve into superhumans. What are our brains and bodies capable of once AI can be implanted? What new religions will arise and will this be the death of liberalism? Society is likely to be faced with an abundance of questions pushing what we believe as a whole to be morally correct. 

This work becomes a mirror of modern visual culture and the effects it has on us.

Social media provides us a superficial overview of millions of topics. Sure the internet holds vast quantities of information, but we often have a tendency to dig deeper. Is our population becoming more intelligent, or is the internet enabling us to simply skim the surface of ideas? Our desire for happiness prevents us from confronting life’s deeper challenges. It's easy to point fingers at mass media and capitalist consumerism for holding us back, but it's our craving for gratification that's the root. I find myself consumed by my appetite for euphoria. The world's technologies advance to bring us things quicker and easier than ever before, but do I get happier as a result? 

Citations

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Translated by Yuval Noah Harari, HarperCollins Publishers, 2011

Valluzzo, Andrea. "Sara Cwynar Explores Power of Imagery at the Aldrich in ‘Gilded Age’." The Ridgefield Press, 8 Aug. 2019, www.theridgefieldpress.com/news/article/Sara-Cwynar-explores-power-of-imagery-at-the-14283833.php.

"Pyracantha." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Nov. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyracantha.

Harari, Yuval N. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Translated by Yuval N. Harari, Penguin Random House UK, 2015

Cwynar, Sara. Contemporary Floral Arrangements 4 (Two Monochromatic Color Schemes). 2014. BOMB Magazine, 17 Feb. 2015, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2015/02/17/sara-cwynar/.

Magritte, René. The Treachery of Images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe). 1929. Oil on canvas. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. René Magritte: The Treachery of Images, www.renemagritte.org/the-treachery-of-images.jsp. Accessed 11 May 2025.