HOROLOGY: Progress causing Obsolescence


If a myth is like an algorithm; a tool shaped by a specific time and place.
Recursively, an algorithm, iteratively updated and deployed in procedural contexts, develops into myth.

 










WRITTEN (THEORY)

>>> Glitch art Horologies (2023) 
>>> ELEGY for the Collapse of PAL (2016)
ARTWORKS (PRACTICE)

>>> Collapse of PAL (2010)
>>> ELEGY for the Collapse of PAL (2016)
>>> Beyond Resolution  (2015)

The Collapse of PAL - re-rendered version of a live av-performance for national Danish television SOUND & TELEVISION
curated by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling, and subsequently performed at oa. Transmediale (Germany) and Nova festival (Brasil).

Collapse of PAL is about the loss of connectivity, about forgotten history, decalibration.
It is also an account of the first digital crisis:

When digital mediations replaced the typically continuous analog signal for discrete data, artifacts like clipping, truncation, and quantization were introduced, raising questions about authenticity and integrity.

A shift that led to a crisis of fidelity, challenging the reliability of the signal.

 

In "The Collapse of PAL" (Eulogy, Obsequies and Requiem for the planes of blue phosphor), the Angel of History reflects on the PAL signal and its termination. This death sentence, although executed in silence, was a brutally violent act that left PAL disregarded and obsolete. While it might be argued that the PAL signal is dead, it still exists as a trace left upon the new, ‘better’ digital technologies.

PAL can, even though the technology is terminated, be found here as a historical form that newer technologies build upon, in- herit or have appropriated from. Besides this, the Angel also realizes that the new DVB signal that has been chosen over PAL is different, but at the same time also inherently flawed as PAL.

☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰☰

︎ Order and Progress catalogue text by Domenico Quaranta

︎ Collapse of PAL in What is Media Archaeology? by Jussi Parikka 
︎ Collapse of PAL in Angelic Ecologies by Sean Cubitt

Nova Roja Trailer / Rosa Menkman - Collapse of PAL 2010-2012


Nova Roja Collapse of PAL end when Defi destroys the screens. Below: live at Xrt 2011.



Elegy for the Collapse of PAL (2016)
A video response to a signal first I send so many years ago. 

TXT published in across & beyond – A transmediale Reader on Post-digital Practices, Concepts, and Institutions Year of publication: 2016

Performed as a short 10 min solo performance at Radiator Gallery in NYC, 2017.
Its screen recorded version (see left) was shown at Vivid Projects behind a ‘shrine’ featuring blue, burned cassette tapes, curated by Antonio Roberts.
 
︎ pdf version.

Installation at Vivid Projects: Superseded (2017)
Photo by Antonio Roberts





Beyond Resolution (2015)
 
Beyond Resolution :: Pattern recognition lost its resolution.

15:30 min AV live performance registration that took place during Static Gallery: Syndrome 3.X Loop Systems, Liverpool, January 2015.

Featuring video images by Alexandra Gorczynski and sounds from Professional Grin by Knalpot. Sound mastering by Sandor Caron.


 
Beyond Resolution soundtrack, remix by Ryan Maguire aka moDernisT.
Original: Beyond Resolution [Rosa Menkman, Professional Grin Knalpot remix]

On process, from Ryan Maguires website: "moDernisT" was created by salvaging the sounds lost in compression via the MP3 and MP4 codecs.


The soundtruck is thus made from the sound that would normally be deleted during the mp3 compression of the original file (like an inversed compression).