I will not shoot any more Polaroid pictures

These Polaroid pictures were altered shortly after they were taken, based on what they depict. They have been shot, sewn, sawed, crushed, burned, and so on; a physical intervention possible because these images are things. What happens if one interacts physically rather than purely virtually with an image? Can this literal, trompe l’oeil strategy determine if an image can actually be something rather than always just be about something? The altered Polaroid object was returned to the virtual, inkjet printed with a background on canvas, to ponder the psychic gulf between matter and thought.