Displacing the Familiar is a practice-based research project focused around the exploration of digital materiality. This writing is intended to give the reader an exposé of the thought process that has emerged out of my crafting and practice. It also presents shorter technical insights and examples of software used. This project takes it starting point in the joy of unpacking the digital technology. The urge to explore and understand the underlying processes that renders visuals material on the screen. How can a visual practice concerned with digital materiality work?

Digital art installation is the result of informatic materials entering gallery spaces and challenging the establishment of media forms. This thesis contends that the open, recursive and recombinatory process of looking at digital installation is in fact the result of noisy relations between information and the spatial temporal contexts of the art gallery. In order to focus on the processes of informatic materials within gallery spaces, this thesis identifies four key modulations of noise and materiality ? emergence, feedback, entropy and delay. I demonstrate how these impact on a range of recent digital installations by Australian and New Zealand artists. The lens of digital materiality shifts from an informational context into that of art history where it is found to highlight the systemic relationality of the installation. The thesis opens with a consideration of histories of media-specificity, and argues for a necessary separation of our concepts of media and materiality. This context provides a set of tools by which the remainder of the thesis investigates a range of digital material flows that are not tied to fixed media definitions. I draw on a range of theorists including Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Claude Shannon and Jack Burnham to further locate these material flows within two strands: experimental sound and information theory. This discussion forms the basis of the thesis? re-appraisal of media distinctions and highlights the complex relationship of informational materials to both sonic and visual histories. The second half of the thesis undertakes an appraisal of emergence, feedback, entropy and delay in specific works and suggests dimensionality, movement and duration as key determinants of the digital installation. These chapters demonstrate that what is at stake in digital installation is the viewer?s implicit role in the shifting relationships of digital materiality. Overall, this thesis presents a framework for emergent materiality in digital installation. I develop a theory of emergent materiality as a process specific to digital installation, and argue that digital installation is in fact a subject-forming assemblage of information-noise in which relations of dimensionality, movement and duration coalesce without cohering. And, within which gallery spaces begin to get noisy.

Digital art installation is the result of informatic materials entering gallery spaces and challenging the establishment of media forms. This thesis contends that the open, recursive and recombinatory process of looking at digital installation is in fact the result of noisy relations between information and the spatial temporal contexts of the art gallery. In order to focus on the processes of informatic materials within gallery spaces, this thesis identifies four key modulations of noise and materiality ? emergence, feedback, entropy and delay. I demonstrate how these impact on a range of recent digital installations by Australian and New Zealand artists. The lens of digital materiality shifts from an informational context into that of art history where it is found to highlight the systemic relationality of the installation. The thesis opens with a consideration of histories of media-specificity, and argues for a necessary separation of our concepts of media and materiality. This context provides a set of tools by which the remainder of the thesis investigates a range of digital material flows that are not tied to fixed media definitions. I draw on a range of theorists including Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Claude Shannon and Jack Burnham to further locate these material flows within two strands: experimental sound and information theory. This discussion forms the basis of the thesis? re-appraisal of media distinctions and highlights the complex relationship of informational materials to both sonic and visual histories. The second half of the thesis undertakes an appraisal of emergence, feedback, entropy and delay in specific works and suggests dimensionality, movement and duration as key determinants of the digital installation. These chapters demonstrate that what is at stake in digital installation is the viewer?s implicit role in the shifting relationships of digital materiality. Overall, this thesis presents a framework for emergent materiality in digital installation. I develop a theory of emergent materiality as a process specific to digital installation, and argue that digital installation is in fact a subject-forming assemblage of information-noise in which relations of dimensionality, movement and duration coalesce without cohering. And, within which gallery spaces begin to get noisy.

Digital art installation is the result of informatic materials entering gallery spaces and challenging the establishment of media forms. This thesis contends that the open, recursive and recombinatory process of looking at digital installation is in fact the result of noisy relations between information and the spatial temporal contexts of the art gallery. In order to focus on the processes of informatic materials within gallery spaces, this thesis identifies four key modulations of noise and materiality ? emergence, feedback, entropy and delay. I demonstrate how these impact on a range of recent digital installations by Australian and New Zealand artists. The lens of digital materiality shifts from an informational context into that of art history where it is found to highlight the systemic relationality of the installation. The thesis opens with a consideration of histories of media-specificity, and argues for a necessary separation of our concepts of media and materiality. This context provides a set of tools by which the remainder of the thesis investigates a range of digital material flows that are not tied to fixed media definitions. I draw on a range of theorists including Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Claude Shannon and Jack Burnham to further locate these material flows within two strands: experimental sound and information theory. This discussion forms the basis of the thesis? re-appraisal of media distinctions and highlights the complex relationship of informational materials to both sonic and visual histories. The second half of the thesis undertakes an appraisal of emergence, feedback, entropy and delay in specific works and suggests dimensionality, movement and duration as key determinants of the digital installation. These chapters demonstrate that what is at stake in digital installation is the viewer?s implicit role in the shifting relationships of digital materiality. Overall, this thesis presents a framework for emergent materiality in digital installation. I develop a theory of emergent materiality as a process specific to digital installation, and argue that digital installation is in fact a subject-forming assemblage of information-noise in which relations of dimensionality, movement and duration coalesce without cohering. And, within which gallery spaces begin to get noisy.

Digital art installation is the result of informatic materials entering gallery spaces and challenging the establishment of media forms. This thesis contends that the open, recursive and recombinatory process of looking at digital installation is in fact the result of noisy relations between information and the spatial temporal contexts of the art gallery. In order to focus on the processes of informatic materials within gallery spaces, this thesis identifies four key modulations of noise and materiality ? emergence, feedback, entropy and delay. I demonstrate how these impact on a range of recent digital installations by Australian and New Zealand artists. The lens of digital materiality shifts from an informational context into that of art history where it is found to highlight the systemic relationality of the installation. The thesis opens with a consideration of histories of media-specificity, and argues for a necessary separation of our concepts of media and materiality. This context provides a set of tools by which the remainder of the thesis investigates a range of digital material flows that are not tied to fixed media definitions. I draw on a range of theorists including Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Claude Shannon and Jack Burnham to further locate these material flows within two strands: experimental sound and information theory. This discussion forms the basis of the thesis? re-appraisal of media distinctions and highlights the complex relationship of informational materials to both sonic and visual histories. The second half of the thesis undertakes an appraisal of emergence, feedback, entropy and delay in specific works and suggests dimensionality, movement and duration as key determinants of the digital installation. These chapters demonstrate that what is at stake in digital installation is the viewer?s implicit role in the shifting relationships of digital materiality. Overall, this thesis presents a framework for emergent materiality in digital installation. I develop a theory of emergent materiality as a process specific to digital installation, and argue that digital installation is in fact a subject-forming assemblage of information-noise in which relations of dimensionality, movement and duration coalesce without cohering. And, within which gallery spaces begin to get noisy.