Virtual-Actual: A non-dualistic investigation into the effects of light on surface in a 3D digital space

Proctor, Paul (2025) Virtual-Actual: A non-dualistic investigation into the effects of light on surface in a 3D digital space. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

My practice-led research investigates the interplay of light and shadow on surface in a 3D digital environment. The research examines this algorithmically determined space that provides opportunities to explore photography within this unique 3D digital realm. My research operates on the peripheries of traditional photographic practices, the photographic images are generated in the 3D digital software and rendered as large scale digital projections and screen images. The research primarily resides in recognising and foregrounding the fundamental agency of the computer as a photographic apparatus. Virtual-Actual is the title of a series of photographic images that uses software processes to enable practice-led research that aims to transcend binary oppositions and open non-dualistic interpretations of photographic images. The terms Virtual and Actual are borrowed from Henri Bergson (1912) and Gilles Deleuze (1988) to describe two essential states that are inexorably entangled. Virtual-Actual is a title that suggests a unison of interdependent states that requires non-dualistic approaches. This is articulated through both the method and the methodologies of the research. The research critiques dualistic models that are expressed in different ways in each part of the thesis. Throughout there is a decentring of the photographer that allows for multiple agents to be acknowledged and recognised through creative and thoughtful processes. My research explores the complexities of spatial and non-spatial multiplicities that lie at the heart of the work Virtual-Actual, achieved through the unifying nature of the digital image. This is interpreted though subtle use of tone, hue and intensities to open perceptual experiences that operate across and through the virtual and actual. The research proposes an alternative approach to established temporal notions of the photographic and interrogates the inner time of duration and the connected method of intuition. Virtual-Actual is a unifying project that connect my thesis and practice through thinking and making, opening a way of perceiving spatial and non-spatial photographic images.