...“the medium is the message” theme that carried much of the Net Art movement through the early 2000’s. However, Paul has used these tools to hone in on the quiet, subtle stories that emerge from the scanning and digital auditing of his collected objects, thus preserving the essence of the object within the technology and allowing room for imagination.

In the large, site-specific installation piece Observatories of Uncharted Vitreous, (2011) small piles of carefully placed fragments change mass and scale when illuminated and magnified by overhead projectors. These objects are further scanned and shuffled into patterns, and graphically printed larger-than-life onto hanging panels, effectively creating what could be celestial charts or maps to lost or imagined civilizations.

Some of the imagery Paul uses in Observatories... and throughout his work consists of metaphors for “hunting” for these found objects, which is an essential part of Paul’s creative process.