Digital War

Assistant Professor of Art Ryan Reynolds explores what it means to see—versus to truly understand.

Digital War
Digital War, 2010: Police try to help civilians wounded after an explosion in Kabul. Courtesy of Ryan Reynolds.

“We live in a time when we see things that we don’t really experience,” says Ryan Reynolds—even though, through the media, “we have a sense that we are informed of truth or reality.” That sense of watching (or not) conflict half a world away informs Digital War, one of Reynolds’ recent series. The painting here shows the aftermath of the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2010. But the digital transmission has been fragmented and, on the receiving end, put together in a way that’s broken, incomplete.

Go further: See more images from Reynolds and explore how the digital perspective shows in his portfolio.

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