Dr Catherine M. Weir is a visual artist and researcher, working primarily with photography, data, and code. Her practice-based research is centred on an exploration of the relationships between her chosen media; and the implications of their increasing convergence for contemporary digital photographic practice and theory. Central to this inquiry is an understanding that today’s digital photographs – particularly those viewed on screen – are no longer straightforward remediations of chemical-based photography, but the output of active computational processes: networked, programmable hybrids of images and data.
Catherine's PhD research – which was supported by a full studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council – examined how the semiotic concept of indexicality developed by Charles Sanders Peirce can be understood in the context of an expanded digital photographic practice; with a focus on artworks combining digital photographs with real-time and recorded data in custom software programs.
Her research has been presented at conferences and symposia nationally and internationally, including papers at The Post-Photographic Apparatus (2019, Lucerne, Switzerland), PaintingDigitalPhotography (2017, Derby, UK), and Material Cultures in Action (2015, Glasgow, UK). In 2018, she also contributed a chapter based on her paper ‘Programming Light’ to the publication PaintingDigitalPhotography: Synthesis and Difference in the Age of Media Equivalence (ed. Carl Robinson, Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
Catherine’s artistic work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including shows at Street Level Photoworks (Glasgow), The Royal Scottish Academy (Edinburgh), and The Victoria and Albert Museum (London); and her 2012 work 'Brownie Digital' was featured in the book 'Digital Revolution', published to accompany a major exhibition at The Barbican (London). In 2016, she was selected to take part in the inaugural Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) Doctoral Artist-in-Residence programme at RSPB Mersehead Nature Reserve (Dumfries and Galloway); which culminated in the development and exhibition of new two new works reflecting on her experiences of the reserve and the charity’s conservation work.
Catherine holds a PhD in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art (2018), an MFA in Computational Studio Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London (2013), and a BA(Hons) in Photographic and Electronic Media from Robert Gordon University (2010). She currently lectures on the Interaction Design and Design History and Theory programmes at Glasgow School of Art.
