Analysis of the reference, 1st Draft:
Looking at Hito Steyerl In defense of the Poor image from a new angle:
Hito Steyerl starts with calling the poor image as an ‘llicit fifth-generation bastard of an original image’, something that at the very beginning made me question the current condition of the visual culture, yet I felt that I didn’t go deep enough to understand it fully. It feels that nowadays we’re experiencing mere ghosts of the images, their transient state rather than shiny and polished originals. The culture of abundance, constant production and circulation, led us, as a society, to a precarious position, we’re no longer in ‘attuned state’. Our feelings went numb smashed by information overload, our responsiveness, brain receptors can’t process the endless flow of visual information where. The contemporary conditions created a hierarchy of images based on resolution, ‘rich’ as Steyerl calls them, the ones that encapsulate the idea of ease and priviledge, while more affordable derivates let lower class experience the ‘out of focus’ or blurry image. Therefore, the poor image, or, low resolution, enables experiencing the culture. It really becomes about it’s own conditions of existence that allows it’s circulation beyond the original carrier.
Therefore, in this logic high resolution became fetichized, became a marked of completeness and richness, those images were seen and wanted as they were original and untouched, preserved in their original state, while copied and downloaded verison were contantly edited and amended. Poor image allowes to exist and feeds the original one through circulation, through becoming invisibile, it let the original carry on it’s desirability and lifecycle. Interestingly enough, in my work I’m trying to go the opposite way and reverse the process and instead of granting the image an afterlife, i’m giving it a limited lifespan in attempt to increase it’s visibility. In the imagotchi, I’m trying to make resolution as a measure of health and its quality assuming that it’s something that people value the most since the images purpose in attempt to capture reality, and therefore unconsciously, complying with the standardized class system. Even though I agree with hito steyerls argument, that quantity allows transferability and circulation, and thus allowing the image to be accessible and democratizes the culture and allowing multiplicity, I feel that her point is incomplete and taking the current state, lacks the modern context. As she was defending the poor image, it didnt take into consideration the newly emergent technology that was taking shape and physical space. Similarly to Hito steel my work agrees with the defense of the poor image which is crucial to main stance of visual culture yet I feel like now it changes our perception (marshal McLuhan) of image perception, made us less attuned to the importance of images, turning our attention away from the content to quantity. We started perceiving images as not purely single entities but trends which is quite evident through how we speak of emergent visual culture nowadays which is now grouped as looked in at as huge patterns, the appreciation towards image is gone. And this is where my world argues and expands that it’s important to have the blurry images as they maintain that intimate relationship between human and content of the image, leaving the gap of intrepretation and but also that we should think of how to counter the culture of abundance instead of treating it as an inevitable condition. We created Culture of permanence, internet became tangible and 4d (as described by her in another essay) and through the weightless metaphors we made up the illusion of unboundless internet which actually in fact quite physical and enabled by quite physical infrastructure. So, her redefined value/perspective of the image would be. encapsulated in its ability of gaining speed and travelling fast due to their compressed nature. It made us believe that we can trash the net space as its intabgible and carelessly treat the way we handle and keep data. as she say’ lack of resolution attests to their appropriation and displacement’ yet i feel in its core its not right that image becomes displaced and left in the internet space with no allocated home/space. it feels a bit dreamy and romantic representation of the ‘humanized’ image, yet i think this perception is totally wrong. Turning contemplation into distraction is the biggest sacrifice we’ve made and the result is that images no longer are made for humans. through distraction we can’t be focused and attuned and therefore algoruthmns now are working on creation of a polished image rather than a real one. Therefore, that’s the reason i’m looking for counter conditions to find actually working solution . trying to be actionable rather than observing.
‘It is about defiance and appropriation just as it is about conformism and exploitation.’
‘visual bonds’
In this light, perhaps one has to redefine the value of the image, or, more precisely, to create a new perspective for it. Apart from resolution and exchange value, one might imagine another form of value defined by velocity, intensity, and spread. Poor images are poor because they are heavily compressed and travel quickly. They lose matter and gain speed.
The poor image is no longer about the real thing—the originary original. Instead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities. It is about defiance and appropriation just as it is about conformism and exploitation.
Progression on the studio work, thinking of interactions:
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