Substrate, 2009

A continuation of Thomas Ruff’s celebrated Substrates series, this edition assembles six images that dissolve narrative into layered color and light – transforming digital imagery into pure aesthetic experience. For Substrates, Ruff draws from internet-sourced comic images, layering and multiplying them through digital processing until they lose all narrative coherence. What remains are vibrant fields of swirling color and light, detached from clear meaning yet rich in visual impact. Thus, Ruff investigates the nature of contemporary visual culture, where virtual images are no longer representations of reality but autonomous aesthetic signals – abstract, seductive, and fundamentally ambiguous.