Rick Silberman is a holographic artist, theorist, and the originator of Holographism — a philosophical and methodological framework formalized in 2012 that systematically translates optical holographic principles into analytical tools for creative, philosophical, and cross-disciplinary inquiry. He is the founder of the Holographism Institute, the publishing and research body through which the seven-volume series and associated scholarship is developed and disseminated.
His practice spans five decades, beginning with holographic shadowgrams in the late 1970s — dimensional, volumetric shadows with sculptural authority. This technical and artistic innovation preceded by more than a decade the formalization of the holography principle in physics by 't Hooft and Susskind. The convergence between his artistic investigations and subsequent developments in theoretical physics is not metaphorical but structural: both inquiries, pursued through different instruments, arrived at the same architectural conclusions about the nature of space, information, and presence.
Major exhibitions include "A Century of Photography" and "Lensless Photography" at the Franklin Institute in the early 1980s, among the first institutional contexts to recognize holography as legitimate artistic practice. His work continues to be developed through a sustained studio practice in New York City.
Holographism draws on Jungian psychology, McLuhan's media theory, and Froebel's pedagogy as sustained intellectual companions alongside the optical physics that grounds its ontological claims.