Contemporary Altars

This thesis paper serves as a documentation, analysis, and reflection of the research process of the investigation of Christian aesthetics, objects, and structures and its parallels with Contemporary America’s relationship with technology and consumerism. Through found object sculpture the work responds to the progression of ideas bridging from medieval art history to contemporary icons and politics. The project was first prompted by the use of icons as metaphors in response to contemporary events or issues. The works that developed afterwards specify technology’s integration into the communication of these ideologies and the chronological transformation of the sacred object. These objects connect the ideas of social pressures to the rapid obsolescence with technology. Conclusively, the trajectory of research questions how the saturation of images guided by developments in technology perpetuates structures. The format of this paper explains a brief historical background and accompanying research before highlighting a work and expanding on specific research, material, and aesthetics decisions that successively informed each other as the project progressed.