A photograph of her mother from Christmas Day 2006, triggered Lauren Mooney to use paint to attempt to renegotiate her relationship with the digital and the photograph:

“memories from that day feel distant and hazy, and I can only recall moments, such as the feel of my dress or the jingle of my mother’s earrings. It troubled me that it seemed the computer remembered more than I did”.

For Mooney painting is, and perhaps always will be, her favourite tool to create.

“There is something poetic and personal in the time you commit to a painting. The process as an extension of oneself, a way of reclaiming the essence or aura of the image, which is thought to be lost through mechanical reproduction”.

For Mooney these are critical issues as she explores her family archive and her relationship with digital imagery. Following the loss of a precious – undigitized – family photograph, Mooney was prompted to confront the potential permanence of the electronic record compared to the fallibility of the human brain, and more profoundly ask herself

“Is loss still possible in the digital age? And can we reclaim what we thought was lost?”

Mooney has developed her understanding of the digital, learning how to code and build website from scratch, and hopes to continue to research and develop the ideas outlined in her dissertation as she continues to develop her career.