With the emergence of internet platforms and apps, the networked image arrives.
The networked image is subjected to not just Terms of Service (ToS), that can lead to censorship and filtering, it is also transcoded when uploaded (and sometimes even when reposted).
A protocol that alters the image in minor and often opaque ways (in terms of meta data alteration, cropping, re-compressing and user edits and additions). However, through iterative interactions of up and download, the image gradually degrades into a 'poor image’, riddled with trace evidence of its moves through the network.
At stake are the image’s authenticity, authorship, control and finally its legibility.
Memes, a type of networked image, start celebrating the poor image by purposefully ‘deep frying’ it.
The networked image is subjected to not just Terms of Service (ToS), that can lead to censorship and filtering, it is also transcoded when uploaded (and sometimes even when reposted).
A protocol that alters the image in minor and often opaque ways (in terms of meta data alteration, cropping, re-compressing and user edits and additions). However, through iterative interactions of up and download, the image gradually degrades into a 'poor image’, riddled with trace evidence of its moves through the network.
At stake are the image’s authenticity, authorship, control and finally its legibility.
Memes, a type of networked image, start celebrating the poor image by purposefully ‘deep frying’ it.
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Behind White Shadows && Pique Nique Pour les Inconnues
is a research project undertaken during my 2019 JMAF residency in Tokyo, Japan.
Behind White Shadows && Pique Nique Pour les Inconnues
is a research project undertaken during my 2019 JMAF residency in Tokyo, Japan.
Building on her encounter with DCTs, the Angel shifts her interest from critical material research to mapping a genealogy of resolutions. This genealogy reveals how historical standards, like color calibration test cards that predominantly feature Caucasian women, have established affordances that shape what can be captured and rendered today. These biased legacy standards set limits on “normal” representation, narrowing the range of capture.
She organizes a Pique Nique Pour les Inconnues; a conference call for all forgotten and unknown faces (or shadows) of color calibration, especially those featured on color calibration test cards, rallying together against these oppressive standards.
Their gathering evolves into a desktop tele-choral performance of solidarity, during which the group sings Paul McCartney's “We All Stand Together.” They also establish a tactical presence as the i.R.D. (institutions of Resolution Disputes) and a De/Calibration Army.
The soldiers use 365 Perfect beautification software to camouflage their blemishes, enlarge their eyes and whiten their skin over countless iterations, until they themselves are ‘deep fried’. The filters distort their natural tones, quantizing them into a blurry green hue. A manipulation that eerily exaggerates the governing standards imposed by both beautification software and algorithms at large.
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