At the Origin Lies the Likeness (2025)
UV-cured ink on dyed acrylic glass, optical-grade acrylic panels, LED light source with remote control, light guide plate, acrylic diffuser, reflective film
52.8 x 52.8 cm,
composed of 9 acrylic panels
At the Origin Lies the Likeness draws on the first digital image produced through scanning technology in 1957 by Russell Kirsch—a portrait of his son, Walden. Often regarded as the point from which digital imaging emerged, its first subject was not abstract data but a human likeness, preserving a direct connection between technological invention and lived experience.
Through a process of ultraviolet layer-by-layer transfer onto tinted acrylic, the image is released from the screen and re-materialised as a physical object. As light passes through successive layers, transparency, depth and refraction continually reshape its appearance, allowing the image to shift between visibility and obscurity while taking on new material conditions.
Repositioned in the present, this early digital image becomes a point of departure for considering the evolving relationship between digital images and reality. From early scanning technologies to contemporary artificial intelligence, images have been produced through the ongoing interplay between human experience and technological systems. Rather than existing separately from reality, they continue to carry its traces while participating in the ways it is perceived, recorded and reconstructed.