Detrimentum is a Photographic and video installation by Kildare artist Katie Whyte.

Her work explores Damnatio memoriae (the condemnation of memory) and explores the process of material and perceptual degradation of forgotten artworks over time. She is interested in representing and re-presenting objects in archives, reinterpreting the narratives of these unseen works through digital glitching processes. This presents itself in an exploration and exploitation of social and cultural texts, images, and objects through the medium of glitch.

The glitching process mimics the degradation she sees from revered object to archival detritus. Her installation pieces, both in physical and virtual spaces, present glitch as a tool for understanding the deterioration of these art objects from their original form.

Her aim is to create a correlation between the corruption in the objects journey through history and the corruption of an image through glitch process as a way for the audience to interpret visually the objects fall into un memory.

Her practice begins by me sourcing historical material. This could be material from archives like NIVAL located in NCAD, images and files online from museums or websites, or objects from specific locations like Statues outside of churches.

Once she has found an object that she is interested in, and she thinks it has an interesting story that is lost or hidden, she will spend time researching this object. This research period could take a few weeks to a couple of months depending on the object and how easily accessible its information is.

For instance, she went to the National library and spent a few days looking at old newspaper film slides when doing research for her piece on the Madonna of Bruges.

After this stage, once she have compiled a narrative she is happy with and have an image to work with, she start the glitching process.