This study analyzes the transformation of the representation paradigm in the conversion from photographic images to 3D objects. Its central argument is that this conversion is not a mere change of medium but a structural shift from indexicality, the f...
This study analyzes the transformation of the representation paradigm in the conversion from photographic images to 3D objects. Its central argument is that this conversion is not a mere change of medium but a structural shift from indexicality, the foundation of photographic representation, to materialized construction. To examine this shift, two conceptual axes—Conversion and Shift of Representation—are set to distinguish the technical-procedural and the aesthetic-ontological dimensions of the transformation.
Theoretically, the nature of photographic representation is examined through Walter Benjamin, Jean Baudrillard, Charles Sanders Peirce's concept of indexicality, and Roland Barthes's photographic theory connected to it, while the stepwise dissolution of indexicality in the digital environment is identified through Lev Manovich's theory of new media and Vilém Flusser's concept of the technical image connected to it, as well as Friedrich Kittler's theory of media technology and Hito Steyerl's concept of the poor image connected to it. On this basis, the study examines the ontology of digital images, the transition from dematerialization to rematerialization, and the principles of technologies that enable materialization—including 3D printing, photogrammetry, and AI-based form generation—and concludes that materialized construction is a third form of materiality formed through the combination of data, algorithm, and matter.
On this theoretical foundation, the conversion process is analyzed in four stages—input, processing, modeling, and output—through which indexicality is gradually attenuated, while materialized construction is correspondingly formed in stages. The shift in the structure of representation is analyzed in terms of four characteristics: the crossing of media, the combination of representational grounds, the operation of rematerialization, and the expansion of the senses. A case study of the lithophane confirms that this shift is realized in its most condensed form within the cyclical structure of light–photograph–data–matter–light.
The analytical model is examined through domestic cases (Osang Gwon, Isac Moon, Jeseong Oh, Youngsik Kim, Sookhyun Yang, Heemin Jeong, Changirl Park, and others) and international cases (Oliver Laric, Morehshin Allahyari, Sophie Kahn, and others), and is verified through the researcher's empirical production of flat-type lithophanes using ItsLitho, Bambu Studio, the Bambu Lab P2S printer, and PLA Basic Jade White filament, in which the gradual attenuation of indexicality and the stepwise formation of materialized construction were directly observed.
Synthesizing these analyses, the aesthetic significance of the conversion is discussed in three dimensions: the transformation of the representation paradigm, the change in perceptual experience from visual to tactile and spatial, and the autonomy of technology-mediated art that reconfigures the relationship between algorithm and creative subjectivity.
This study demonstrates that the conversion from photographic images to 3D objects entails a structural shift from indexical representation to materialized construction, manifesting across the grounds of representation, semiotic function, materiality, sensory experience, originality, and creative subjectivity.