Death of a Princess

Catrin’s seminar will look at a handful of case studies that exemplify mis-attributed, mis-read, and stolen images occurring in online spaces. The images in these case studies are performing illustratively to create narrative effects that — while purporting to be factual — are either actively deceptive or contradictory and confusing. It should be noted that these narrative effects were almost never anticipated or desired by the image's author but are a result of their recontextualization by the architect(s) of the deceptive narrative. Images considered will include the "Death of a Princess" photograph that circulated online immediately after the death of Princess Diana and photographic portraits used as part of the Amina Arraf "Gay Girl in Damascus" hoax. This seminar is the beginning of a year-long project in which Catrin revisits and builds upon work from her PhD thesis, A Taxonomy of Deception, which explored how deceptions function as designed (and illustrated) artifacts.

Catrin Morgan is Assistant Professor in Illustration at Parsons School of Design and a 2022-23 GIDEST Faculty Fellow. She is an illustrator, artist, and designer whose practice is concerned with mathematical, architectural, and theoretical systems. Catrin has an MA in Communication Art and Design from The Royal College of Art in London and a PhD in Visual Communication also from the RCA. Her first book, Phantom Settlements (Ditto Press, 2011), an illustrated exploration of the work of Ryan Gander, Jamie Shovlin, and Tom McCarthy, was produced in collaboration with Mireille Fauchon and the design studio Julia. Her second book, an illustrated edition of Ben Marcus’s landmark of experimental fiction, The Age of Wire and String, was published by Granta Books in 2013. In 2017 she was invited to produce a limited edition artist’s book, Studies for Studies, at Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale in New York and, in 2018, Jerome’s Study, a further collaboration with Max Porter, was published by Test Center Books in London.