Conceptual nominee

This body of work explores my effort to understand the role of science and technology in our landscape. In this day and age, I think that it is difficult to differentiate between our natural world that has been altered and that which has not been. There is a mesh of man-made, “artificial” material with what is deemed natural, leading us to a nature that is not so easily defined. In a world filled with plastic trees, Technicolor flowers, and simulated nature, I am drawn to the blurry lines. The questions we can ask of what effects science and technology have on our environment, past and present. My interest in plastic is its status as a hyperobject in our environment. The term hyberobject coined by ecologist and philosopher Timothy Morton. Hyperobjects are “objects that are so massively distributed in time and space as to transcend spatiotemporal specificity”. Plastic is exponentially becoming a part of our environment. My photographs are in collaboration between performance and actuality. For my photographic process is a form of research above anything else in which I use myself, and the outside world for material.

Amrita Stuetzle is a photographer based in Upstate NY. She has received her B.F.A in Art Photography from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. She has exhibited locally at the College of Visual and Performing Arts of Syracuse University, Light Work, and Spark Contemporary Art Space. Currently, she is working as a print maker and lab assistant at Light Work as well as assisting photographer Doug Dubois.