Felt Presence | The Roses | The Images | The Relics | The Pilgrimage | Response to Benjamin
Welcome to the Digital Exhibition of Felt Presence. This is a living website, actively being updated with new content and research. Check back for updates!
Currently on view at the Delaware Contemporary – September 5th through December 28th and the Loyola University Julio Art Gallery – October 15th through November 19th.
A new essay informed by this body of work will be published in The Delaware Contemporary’s 2025 Biennial Anthology, “Artifice: Implications for Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” on October 3rd. The work will be discussed in a forthcoming online conference hosted by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion entitled “Divine Devices” – October 30th and 31st.
As seen on: EWTN’s Miracle Hunter with Michael O’Neill Show, a profile at Aleteia, and KMMK’s Kolbe Konnection Podcast.
Felt Presence is an installation combining an interactive live video feed, sculpture, video documentation and alternative photographic processes. The installation uses the archival ephemera of Catholic material culture, especially the tradition of images alleged to be made “without human hands,” to analyze how our beliefs and behaviors are shaped by influential forces operating just outside our understanding. We see these themes reflected in the development of twentieth and twenty-first-century technologies, where popular mass media enable the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
The use of AI image-making tools in this body of work is an examination not only of the medium’s dynamism but its pitfalls, ethical boundaries, and relationship to the oftentimes contradictory archive of institutional power. Their presentation in this installation invites discernment, challenging the viewer to critically engage with the archive and our current media landscape. Viewers are made into experiencers, acknowledging the presence of invisible hands that guide their lives.
This project grew out the research conducted for my journal article Choreographing Shadows and installation project Noo Icons.
The show is divided into four parts: The Roses, The Images, The Relics, and The Pilgrimage.
It culminates with a brief response to Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Exhibitions
2025 Biennial: Art + AI. The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE. Curated by Amy Hicks, Erica Loustau, and Marnie Benney. September 5-December 28th, 2025.
Art and Spirituality. Julio Fine Arts Gallery – Loyola University, Baltimore, MD. Curated by Kerry Boeye and Dan Shlapbach. October 15-November 19th, 2025.
Interested in exhibiting Felt Presence? Have questions or feedback?
Contact me at MJBurchick@gmail.com.
Acknowledgements
This work would not be possible without funding from the University Film and Video Association’s Carole Fielding Research Grant, Towson University’s Graduate Student Association, Towson University’s College of Fine Art and Communication’s CoLab Grant, the Graduate Studies Dean’s Office and COFAC’s Dean’s Office.
The relics featured in this exhibit were made at the Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics in Maria Stein, Ohio. I am thankful to Mark Travis, Matt Hess and Heidi Pierron for their hospitality, and I am especially grateful to the library staff of University of Dayton for their assistance finding, working with, and structuring how the relics would be featured in this exhibit.
Thank you to my cohort and MFA committee: Phil Davis, Carolyn Fucile, Jenee Mateer, Ryan Murray, and Kyohei Abe. Their feedback and support was invaluable in seeing this project through.
Translations of the letters and brochures in this piece were provided by Professor Daniel Hanna of Towson’s foreign language department. Dr. Hanna provides his voice for the spoken word segment. Thank you to Michael Angelella for his additional voice acting.
Archival materials are used with permission from the Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics, the Archives Carmel de Lisieux, and the Archives of the Sanctuary of Fatima.
Special thank you’s to Matthew Yake (@matthewyake) and Steve Saada (@arborsonic_woodworks) for additional fabrication. Thank you to David Merino and the Faculty Academic Center of Excellence at Towson for their help with 3D scanning and printing. Thank you to Kari Miller of Tiny Dog Press (@tinydogpress) for her expertise and use of her facilities producing the letterpress prints. Thank you to Aral Olgun for his assistance with digital prints. Thank you to Penny Forester for her expertise related to the darkroom and alternative photographic processes.
In no particular order, I am grateful to the following folks for their research, inspiration, and conversations which lent itself to this project: Shannon Taggart, Beth Saunders, Diana Walsh Pasulka, Eryk Salvaggio, Deirdre de la Cruz, Trevor Paglen, Joan Fontcuberta, Daniel Wojcik, Sandra Zimdars-Swartz and Kathryn Barush.
Thank you to Jena Burchick for her love and support throughout this journey. Together, we welcomed our daughter Nora Grace Burchick into the world during the creation of this body of work. Between late nights, early mornings, and research travel, Jena has been the rock of our household and Nora the exploding bean sprout. My family is the source of joy, inspiration, and grace that makes everything else possible.
Felt Presence | The Roses | The Images | The Relics | The Pilgrimage | Response to Benjamin
Mark J. Burchick 