Traditionally, the term resolution, when used in relation to the image, describes a qualitative and quantitative measure of clarity and detail.

However, with the introduction of networked and synthetic images, the image has changed into a procedural, data-driven infrastructure.

Via continuous process of recalibration, adaptation and compromise at scale, in all levels of the pipeline (capture, render, dissemination, reception)  the process of resolving takes dominance over a final or fixed image.


A resolution is no longer a static, quantifiable measure but a dynamic, responsive process that governs the fidelity, legibility and meaning of the what may become, obsolete: the image, as it makes space for the resolving of renders.



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im/possible images
is a research project in the framework of my Arts at CERN COLLIDE Barcelona award.
curated by Monica Bello. 2021

0110 — ATLAS FOR  DESTITUTE VISION

Adopting her newfound role as a Media Archaeologist from the Future, the Angel collects various axes that constitute the image processing pipeline, hoping this may provide a way to start her collection of unknown and forgotten image renders:

a scanline, an outline, a separator, a progress bar, a ruler, a threshold, ...a mesh, a spline, an axis, a matrix, a block, a wavelet, a vector, ...a timeline, a sequence, ...a connector, a link, ...a render element, metadata, ...feedback, recursion, a loop, ...a generator, a discriminator...

From these, the Angel assembles a Binary Large Object or BLOb: an uncommitted shape textured with shifting moiré patterns.

The BLOb is an environment freed from protocol, functioning as a fluid, ever-growing archive for all im/possible image pipelines; an adaptive space that defies rigid image standards. Facing the BLOb, the Angel reflects on her journey and all the ways she can now see the loss of vision, which she compiles in an Atlas for Destitute Vision.

Maps in the Atlas for Destitute Vision:

Digital image
- [material] Vernacular of File Formats
- [material] Ecology of Compression Complexities (by a BLOb) 
- [scale] FF D8 De/Calibration Target as a repository for a genealogy of macroblocking artifacts

Networked image 
- [genealogy] Lexicon of Glitch Affect
- [genealogy] De/Calibration Army  

Synthetic image
- [scope] Spectrum of Lost and Un/Named colours
- [crisis] BLOb of im/possible Images



︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  


Rosa Menkman is a Dutch artist and researcher of resolutions. Her work focuses on noise artifacts resulting from accidents in both analogue and digital media.

The journey of her protagonist, the Angel of History—inspired by Paul Klee’s 1920 monoprint, Angelus Novus, and conceptualized by Walter Benjamin in 1940—functions as a foundational framework for her explorations of image processing technologies. As the machines upgrade, the Angel finds herself caught in the ripple of their distortions, unable to render the world around her.

Complementing her practice, she published Glitch Moment/um (INC, 2011), a book on the exploitation and popularization of glitch artifacts. She further explored the politics of image processing in Beyond Resolution (i.R.D., 2020). In this book, Rosa describes how the standardization of resolutions promotes efficiency, order, and functionality, but also involves compromises, resulting in the obfuscation of alternative ways of rendering.

In 2019, Rosa won the Collide Arts at CERN Barcelona award, which inspired her recent research into im/possible images, consolidated in the im/possible images reader (published by the i.R.D. & Lothringer, with support from V2, 2022).

From 2018 to 2020, Rosa worked as Substitute Professor of Neue Medien & Visuelle Kommunikation at the Kunsthochschule Kassel.
Since 2023, she has been running the Im/Possible Lab at HEAD Geneve. Class materials can be found here; please copy <it> right!.

Recent work can be found in this pdf portfolio.
This website was made possible with the financial support of the Stimuleringsfonds.nl (2018)
I am grateful to have received a basis stipend from the Mondriaan Fund (2018-2021) and just recently: 2023 - 2027!
︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎  ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎