0000 DESTITUTE VISION
༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽༽
0011 OBSOLETE GAMUT AT ZENITH
0100 RAINBOW GENERATOR
0101 REFRACTIONS
༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼༼
▋▅ CALENDAR ▋▅
OBSOLETE GAMUT AT ZENITH (2024)
Commissioned and acquired by Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
Commissioned and acquired by Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
0100 OBSOLETE GAMUT AT ZENIT
It's easy to see why the grove is named after Wodan (Odin), the cyclops god who sacrificed an eye in exchange for the future vision of his own demise. Even though its branches continue to grow, they display only an Obsolete Gamut at Zenith, signalling the end of their cycle and impending failure to render.
Fascinated by the lore of future failure, a perspective diametrically opposed to my own fixation on past collapse, I step into the grove, hoping to learn from Wodan’s sense of foresight. But as soon as I enter, failure overtakes my perception. Caught in a recursive double blind between future collapse and past obsolescence, everything around me turns to ruin.
With no sense of direction—up or down, backward or forward—I am suspended.
THE RAINBOW GENERATOR (2024)
Commissioned and produced in the framework of EPFL - CDHArtist in Residence Program 2023, Enter the Hyper-Scientific
With help by Herman Hermsen and So Kanno.
.
0100 RAINBOW GENERATORCommissioned and produced in the framework of EPFL - CDHArtist in Residence Program 2023, Enter the Hyper-Scientific
With help by Herman Hermsen and So Kanno.
.
I am floating with no sense of day or night,
no axis of rotation,
no North or South...
Overcome by my sudden loss of sight, I desperately search for ways to restore my vision.
I construct a Rainbow Generator to refract a Spectrum of Lost and Un/Named Colours. But while the device is meant to help me regain control over the lost frequencies of visible light, I remain blind.
I consider if I might need a different kind of eye; one that is larger, slower, or more sensitive to other frequencies of light. In a final desperate try, I mount an antenna in one of my eye sockets. With this new visual ecology, I collect data about my surroundings and attempt to render a map.
But all I resolve is a massive glitch...
.
A monumental cairn of glitches in REFRACTIONS (2024)
REFRACTIONS resulted from research done in the framework of my European Media Art Platform residency at NeMe, Limassol, Cyprus.
REFRACTIONS resulted from research done in the framework of my European Media Art Platform residency at NeMe, Limassol, Cyprus.
0101 REFRACTIONS
...Progress, once symbolized by the Hologram PenRose-Stairs to Nowhere, is now resolved in ruins, rendering a monumental cairn of nonsensical vectors. This glitched cairn suggests that either the dataset I have collected is flawed, or that I do not have the right protocol to decode it.
At a loss, I approach the Spomenik glitch cautiously, tracing the dynamic edges of its vectors, composed of thick layers of poor-resolution sediment.
One of its shredded sides reveals a viewport, offering a glimpse into a repository of render objects.
Like a media archaeologist from the future, I try to carefully reconstruct the Shredded Hologram PenRose. But its synthetic data adheres to machine-to-machine standards, producing nothing but a blue haze of noise.
A momentary panic sets in
...if my tools cannot render this data, perhaps a framework independent of me can de/calibrate the glitch.
In a last effort, I scan frequencies that I usually keep on mute.
To my surprise, deep within a C-band frequency, I detect a faint echo: a CyCLOPS.cy corner reflector, part of a decentralized system that recalibrates data misaligned across time and space.
Bouncing my data through the reflector, its phase difference resolves rendring my future vision renders clearly...
In a last effort, I scan frequencies that I usually keep on mute.
To my surprise, deep within a C-band frequency, I detect a faint echo: a CyCLOPS.cy corner reflector, part of a decentralized system that recalibrates data misaligned across time and space.
Bouncing my data through the reflector, its phase difference resolves rendring my future vision renders clearly...
XILITLA (2012-2013)
with restored controller at TRANSFERs High Resolution show
SoHo, NY, 2024
.
On now:
28/09/2024 - 19/10/2024 High Resolution, TRANSFER X Postmasters, SoHo, NYC, USA.
27/09/2024 - 03/02/2025 Electric Op, Buffalo Art Museum, USA.
27/09/2024 - 01/12/2024 Attention upon Arrival, Schafhof Freising, De.
To come:
24/11/2024 - 13/07/2025 Digital Witness, Lacma, LA, USA (interview here)
07.11.2024 - 16.02.2025 The end and the Beginning, iMAL, Brussels, Be.
Also happening:
14/15/2024 - Symposium @./studio3 Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck University, Austria.
08/11/2024 - Dialogue on doubts and error. Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) De.
08-01.2024 - Lab.Zone Scaling as Violence @HEAD Geneva, Sw.
2024 - Founding member TRANSFER Data Trust.
More
.
with restored controller at TRANSFERs High Resolution show
SoHo, NY, 2024
.
▋▅ CALENDAR ▋▅
On now:
28/09/2024 - 19/10/2024 High Resolution, TRANSFER X Postmasters, SoHo, NYC, USA.
27/09/2024 - 03/02/2025 Electric Op, Buffalo Art Museum, USA.
27/09/2024 - 01/12/2024 Attention upon Arrival, Schafhof Freising, De.
To come:
24/11/2024 - 13/07/2025 Digital Witness, Lacma, LA, USA (interview here)
07.11.2024 - 16.02.2025 The end and the Beginning, iMAL, Brussels, Be.
Also happening:
14/15/2024 - Symposium @./studio3 Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck University, Austria.
08/11/2024 - Dialogue on doubts and error. Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) De.
08-01.2024 - Lab.Zone Scaling as Violence @HEAD Geneva, Sw.
2024 - Founding member TRANSFER Data Trust.
More
.
0000 A SPECTRUM OF LOST AND UNNAMED COLOURS
0001 A NEW HOROLOGY OF GLITCH
0010 A COLLECTION OF COLLECTIONS FOLDED INTO A LIBRARY
0011 EXHIBITIONS, TALKS, PRIZES AND HONOURS
In a not-too-distant future, a media archaeologist has tasked herself with compiling an atlas dedicated to lost or unknown ways of seeing. During this mission she finds herself captivated by a NEON Rainbow Fairy Light, an object seemingly plucked from a child's bedroom. The archeologist proclaims the fairy light to be a quintessential artifact that encapsulates the entire history of the decline of nature's original "glitch"—the atmospheric rainbow.
Proper observation of rainbows has become rare due to a double process of pollution. On the one hand, climate change, environmental degradation, and light pollution have dulled atmospheric rainbows’ brilliance, making their occurrence increasingly unusual and their sightings more precious. On the other hand, within the realms of image processing, digital pollution has corrupted and distorted the representation of rainbows even more: as generative artificial intelligence struggles to differentiate between symbolic representations—the rainbow-alike—and actual depictions of natural phenomena, images of authentic rainbows have become anomalous.
0000 A SPECTRUM OF LOST AND UNNAMED COLOURS
From September to November 2023, I was artist in residence at at the EPFL - CDH - the Enter the Hyper-Scientific Program.
The work that I developed during that time, is now on show at the Pavilions (23.2.–17.3.2024). It is beautiful, and if you are around and have the chance, you should definitely go and see.
However, if Lausanne is too far, I embedded a special documentation video that I believe gives a good overview.
Partners: EPFL Center for Imaging, Edward Andò, CLIMACT Center for Climate Impact and Action UNIL & EPFL
Credits: Rosa Menkman
Sound: Debit
With support from: Lotte Menkman, Herman Hermsen, and So Kanno
Curator & head of program: Giulia Bini <3 thank youuuu
0001 A NEW HOROLOGY OF GLITCH
In recent cycles, a lot has been written about “glitches” or “glitch art.” I am using the word “cycle” here because I am not referring to the linear time of seasons, years or histories, but rather to the nonlinear and overlapping cycles of clocks, drops, and iterations our technologies now inhabit.
Is the question still “what is a glitch”?
Or should we (also) ask Who or what gets to experience, deploy, deconstruct or be wronged/righted by or with the glitch? Where is the glitch? Whose glitch can we see, and what glitches remain invisible?”
Whatever the question, writing histories of glitch merely means to write certain practitioners or glitches out of the program.
Read my short essay on glitch and time for Outland Art here
A Collection of Collections as hosted on NewArt.City
0010 A COLLECTION OF COLLECTIONS FOLDED INTO A LIBRARYA Collection of Collections Folded Into A Library is an expanded video essay, in which I introduce my collecting habits and how they help me develop new insights and perspectives, or even create knowledge.
This expanded lecture is based on a presentation at the BiblioTech event at NeMe in Cyprus that I then reworked for the Institute of Network Cultures’ the Void podcast, which is concerned with the changing role of collecting, the library and publishing in a post-digital age.
The flat-chapter version (image and text) will also be published in the upcoming Bibliotech book.
BLOB of Im/Possible Images
at the Chongqing Science and Technology Museum
(on show right now)
at the Chongqing Science and Technology Museum
(on show right now)
0011 EXHIBITIONS, TALKS, PRIZES AND HONOURS
Here are some wonderful shows featuring my work right now: EPFL Pavilions Lausanne, Chongqing Science Museum, Photo 2024 Melbourne, Pinakotheka Munich and Düsseldorf KünstPalast.
This semester, besides a few talks and performances (amongst which a keynote at University of Basel and a conversation with Karen Archey at the Lima Preservation of Digital Art conference), I will also be heading the second semester of the im/possible lab at the work.master @HEAD, Geneva.
An almost fully updated list of engagement can be found here.
Last but definitely not least, in 2023 I was honoured to receive:
- for my JPEG from a Vernacular of File Formats, (2009 - 2010), 2023 revisitation with hidden message in DCT,
I was awarded first prize in the Lumen Prize still image category.
Which lead to an ALT Histories interview with Greg J. Smith for HOLO magazine about DCT / JPEGs. On the occasion, I released the my DCT Research Repo.
- for my im/possible images research I received a S+T+ARTS nomination.
- In December, a Mondriaan Artist Basic Grant, which is not basic at all, and will help me proceed my research in a time that seems otherwise financially more and more difficult.
For this, I am very, very grateful.
Here are some wonderful shows featuring my work right now: EPFL Pavilions Lausanne, Chongqing Science Museum, Photo 2024 Melbourne, Pinakotheka Munich and Düsseldorf KünstPalast.
This semester, besides a few talks and performances (amongst which a keynote at University of Basel and a conversation with Karen Archey at the Lima Preservation of Digital Art conference), I will also be heading the second semester of the im/possible lab at the work.master @HEAD, Geneva.
An almost fully updated list of engagement can be found here.
Last but definitely not least, in 2023 I was honoured to receive:
- for my JPEG from a Vernacular of File Formats, (2009 - 2010), 2023 revisitation with hidden message in DCT,
I was awarded first prize in the Lumen Prize still image category.
Which lead to an ALT Histories interview with Greg J. Smith for HOLO magazine about DCT / JPEGs. On the occasion, I released the my DCT Research Repo.
- for my im/possible images research I received a S+T+ARTS nomination.
- In December, a Mondriaan Artist Basic Grant, which is not basic at all, and will help me proceed my research in a time that seems otherwise financially more and more difficult.
For this, I am very, very grateful.
Installation view of Myopia at the Künstpalast Düsseldorf
and a Vernacular of File Formats at the Pinakotheka, Münich
(see my chipmunk walkthrough video).
and a Vernacular of File Formats at the Pinakotheka, Münich
(see my chipmunk walkthrough video).
|
im/possible rainbows in: "CYCLOPS RETINA", London. /****** 📡 resolution update 📡 7.0 ******/ Its been a moment (18 months) since the last time I wrote,,, 👁️ but here I am! 👁️ * 12 months ago I quit my job. I am now 100% on a mission to produce what I want to see in this world. * On the 3rd of April I made it to my 40th year. Seeing time slip away towards this moment felt hard - like I was going through a process of mourning. But its also been an interesting time. /********************************************/  0000 REFRACTIONS IN LIGHT AND TIME During the summer of 2👁️22, I had a residency at NeMe within the framework of EMAP, to research cyclopes. Cyclopes are famous mythical creatures, known for their gargantuan physique and single round eye. However, beyond their most famous features and maybe the name born by the most famous Cyclops Polyphemus, little about them is known. In fact, Cyclopes seem shrouded in mystery, sparking general questions such as: Where can we find contemporary Cyclopes and how do Cyclopes perceive the world? Recently I learned that a certain Cyclops (going by the name Wodan) traded an eye, in exchange for the sense of future vision. Tired of a century of only looking towards the past, the Angel of History is now set to undertake a journey to learn from the cyclops future vision. An introductionary video about my research can be found here. Refractions in Light and Time is an ongoing work in progress. An iterative outcome will be on show at WRO Poland and will feature a font design by Taietzel Ticalos and a soundtrack by Debit. Refractions in Light and Time was co-funded by the European Union and the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture.
Cyclops Retina install, London. Commissioned by The Beams for Thin Air in London, up until the 4th of June 2023. 0001 CYCLOPS RETINA In collaboration with Kimchi and Chips. "In Cyclops Retina, Kimchi and Chips and Rosa Menkman combine their contrasting research into light as both a material and neurological phenomenon. The work can be seen as an experimental film in an experimental format, offsetting Kimchi and Chips’ Light Barrier drawing technique with a especially commissioned story written by Menkman, both exploring alternative modes of vision.” My research into cyclopes also resulted into a collaboration with Kimchi and Chips, which is propbably one of the most beautiful works I have ever been part of. The experience of the installation is aetherial and 100% to be seen in person, however, I did post a little documentary video to show what it looks like through the lens of an iphone (w/0 postprocessing).
"DeCalibration Target" Berlin. 0010 i.R.D. DECALIBRATION TARGET From the Transmediale website: "A blip, a glitch on a satellite photo, an error in the rendering of an image shot by a drone. What might seem a mistake is a freshly painted marker that sits on a rooftop in one of the most historic neighbourhoods of Berlin. Located at the riverside, near the remains of the Berlin wall, the target functions as an AR beacon. On activation offers access to a cache of research about the DCT algorithm and the JPEG compression. This 16 x 16m target can only be read from above, reminding us that resolution, and its recognition, determines what is seen, unseen or illegible. In Decalibration Target, Rosa Menkman explores what happens when something exists outside our dimensions or system units of scale, and asks what tools are needed to distinguish it from its environment. Commissioned for Out of Scale, the 2023 transmediale exhibition, the i.R.D. Decalibration Target can only be seen from above through satellite imagery or taken home as a flyer and postcard souvenir from transmediale warehouse." I am very thankful to the transmediale festival and Stimuleringsfonds for supporting the i.R.D. (The institutions of Resolution Disputes) in making this permanent installation a reality. The Target comes with a DCT REPO, featuring a collection of information and work on the DCT algorithm.
Marker, flyer and postcard picturing the Target. 
"Shredded Hologram Rose" 0011 LIVE PERFORMANCE OF THE SHREDDED HOLOGRAM ROSE The transmediale also invited me onto their stage, to perform "The Shredded Hologram Rose" Inspired by Fragments of a Hologram Rose, a 1977 science fiction short story by William Gibson, this lecture performance explores the violent stories of standardisation embedded in 3D composite objects. The performance takes place in a little "cube" (home pod) of a media archeologist a century of cycles from now. The paraphanelia on her walls and desk clearly show her investment into the stories of the Angel of History - now going by the name Iana? -, the now obsolete DCT algorithm and the i.R.D. DeCalibration Target. I rendered the performance into a video format especially for the NewArt.City Memory Card festival, which can watched back here Performing "Shredded Hologram Rose" during Transmediale.
lM/POSSIBLE IMAGES READER" (2023) 0100 UPDATE: IM/POSSIBLE IMAGES Luzi Gross and I finally released the Im/Possible Images Reader. I initiated my - still in progress - research on Im/Possible Images during my residency at CERN with a single question: Imagine you could obtain an 'impossible' image of any object or phenomenon that you think is important, with no limits on spatial, temporal, energy, signal/noise or cost resolutions. What image would you create? (the answer can be a hypothetical image of course!) The reader represents a moment of reflection on the progress, shapes and forms my im/possible research has made and obtained. It constitutes of a collection of texts written by me, Luzi and our peers, and ranges from short stories, to image work, manuals, (technical) documentation and essays. Some of these materials were specifically commissioned for this reader, whereas others have been generously allowed to be reprinted. The organization of this publication is modular; the chapters can be read independently. Despite this, we chose the order in which we present them for a reason: to provide a consistently additive flow that builds outwards from the five axes of the exhibition. * The Blob has been installed in multiple countries China, Cyprus, UK and Germany. * My im/possible images research is levelling up with a residency at EPFL, Lausane where I will research impossible rainbows and unnamed colours. The BLOB installed by Iris Long and @He_Zike for TEMPORAL STACK: THE DEEP SENSOR (2023). 0101 NOT.GLI.TC/H It had been 10 years since the 5th GLI.TC/H 2123 event in Birmingham took place. The GLI.TC/H/ BOTS felt it was time to consider this hiatus and see where the genre has gone and where GLI.TC/H should go. On April 1st, the community showed up for 14 talks, 8 performances, 5 installation pieces, 7 screenings and an openports gallery show. The livestream recording of the panel talks are available here 
JPEG FROM A VERNACULAR OF FILE FORMATS, (2009 - 2010), 2023 REVISITATION WITH HIDDEN MESSAGE IN DCT. 0110 SOTHEBY'S: BEYOND BINARY AUCTION After Sotheby's used the image of the Angel of History as part of the promotional materials for their 30 piece -all male- glitch auction, it only took 'some' noise in the twitter hellscape for their auction to be put on hold. In response, Sotheby's enlisted Dina Chang and Dawnia Darkstone to curate more equitable. Sotheby's also asked me to write an essay to introduce the many layers of to glitch art and invited me to a panel discussion in their actual auction premises in New York. I am thankful to Dina to invite me into her curation and for the gesture of patronage by those bidding and collecting my work (going into this, I was afraid I might not even sell!) The auction house produced this special 1/1 print for the new auction, in which I embedded an in DCT encrypted message about value: "The true value of a work of art extends beyond its market, enwrapping both its cultural and historic significance." Auction houses have a responsibility beyond profit-making. By embracing a broader definition of value and ensuring equitable curation via a diverse roster of artists, auction houses can contribute to a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive market. 0111 LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE
IANA at the BLOB 0111 LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE * From June - August I will be in Tasmania * September - November I will have my EPFL residency, during which I will research impossible rainbows and unnamed colours. |
im/possible images opened on the 15th of July at the Lothringer Halle 13 in Munich and will be open for 2 more weeks. This weekend I will be in Munich to give a talk (if I ever get there, cause right now it looks like we are pretty stuck on this train).
im/possible images is conceptualized and curated by me, and produced by Luzi Gross, to whom I am very grateful for all her hard work and dedication. 💎 💎
🔹 My chipmunk-style video walkthrough click here.
🔹 Photos from the install here.
Background to the show
At the entrance of the Lothringer, a computer provides access to the digital version of the exhibition, titled: the BLOB of im/possibe images. The BLOB is home to a virtual collection of im/possible images that I sourced during my Arts at CERN/Collide-Barcelona residency, by asking every scientist the same question:
Imagine you could obtain an 'impossible' image of any object or phenomenon that you think is important, with no limits on spatial, temporal, energy, signal/noise or cost resolutions. What image would you create?
I developed the BLOB to function as a virtual home for my collection of im/possible images during the pandemic, when all galleries were closed. But now, at the Lothringer 13, the im/possible images exhibition has become a real space actualisation of the virtual BLOB.
The im/possible images exhibition uses the term ‘latent image space,’ as an expanded concept.
In analogue photography, the latent image space exists when photosensitive material has been exposed, but has not gone through the process of development (yet). It is the space that has been touched by light, but that is not showing trace evidence (in the form of an image) yet.
The im/possible images show uses the latent image term as a hypothetical space, that involves every imaginable and unimaginable image that could ever be rendered. A main premise of im/possible images is that once a render parameter is chosen, this parameter acts as a metaphoric cut through the space of the latent image, dividing it up into images that remain possible, and images that have become impossible. So effectively, every render setting realizes particular images, while it compromises others.
In the Lothringer these parameters or axes, are materialized as architectural elements that quite literally cut through the space while introducing five categories of im/possiblity.
DOCUMENTATION
🔹 My chipmunk-style video walkthrough click here
🔹 Artforum review here
works:
︎Rosa Menkman, BLOB of Im/Possible Images, 3D word, 2021.
The white axis, the axis of all possible images, starts outside the gallery and serves as the entrance into the hypothetical latent image space of Lothringer 13 Halle. The axis features two works; the BLOB of im/possible images and All Possible Images [True Color, Full HD] (2021). The latter, All Possible Images, is an entirely new, commissioned work by Fabian Heller. In All Possible Images, Heller explores the absolute maximal, finite number of possible renders an HD computer screen can display. Given enough time (and screens to render on), any sequence of pixels - or ways to fill up an HD display - will eventually occur somewhere at some moment in the world. However, the number of images that a FullHD screen can render is immense. It stretches beyond understanding at a human scale - and ushers in a scenario reminiscent of Borges’ Total Library and Émile Borels infinite monkey theorem. In an essay in the im/possible images reader Heller therefore concludes that All Possible Images comes with its own impossibilities.
works:
︎UCNV, Supercritical, Video installation, 2019.
︎Peter Edwards, Nova Drone, Interactive installation, 2012.
30 meters onwards, the white axis intersects with a red axis named the axis of low fidelity images. This red axis functions as an abstract threshold that exists in the realms of digital rendering technologies, beyond the simple binaries otherwise used to understand whether an image can or can not be rendered and features works by UCNV and Peter Edwards.
Images can be amalgamated rather than consolidated. This means that while image data might be static, the final image render is entirely dependent on the discrete steps of the (lofi) image render pipeline. The works exhibited along this red axis illustrate this. They are examples of images existing as non-static formations, or objects of ambiguous technical interpretation, that explore how technological affordances relate to medium specificity, limitation and erroneous consolidation. For instance, Edwards audio visual synthesizer, the Nova Drone, centers around a LED pulsating at high frequency, translated as image-information by the CCD chip (light capturing chip) that exists in most cell phones. Due to the mis-match in frequency between the light pulse of the LED in the Nova Drone and the speed at which the chip of the phone camera collects and writes away the light, a questionable interpretation appears in the memory - the photo roll - of the phone. Whereas Edwards shows how a mismatch in time resolution by our devices can resolve into beautiful, but erroneous, representations, UCNV illustrates how mechanics play out at the level of pixel resolution. His work Supercritical, also represented in an essay in this reader, demonstrates how changes in quantitative pixel resolution result in ambiguous, fluid data morphing. A mechanism that is taken one step further in Daniel Temkin’s contribution to this reader, a how-to guide titled “Unprintables”, which is a manual for creative quantitative pixel resolution mis-use.
works:
︎Susan Schuppli, Can the sun lie? Video, 2014–2015
︎Sasha Engelmann & Sophie Dyer, Open Weather, Installation & Workshop, 2020-2021
︎Rosa Menkman, Whiteout, video (15 min.), 2020
︎Quote by Ingrid Burrington "forever noon on a cloudless day"
︎NASA basemap of Earth.
A green axis titled images based on speculation, dis/belief or imagination runs almost perpendicular to the red axis. The works installed along this axis show the complex dynamic in images that are presented as evidentiary, truthful or scientific. They illustrate that all processes of image sourcing inevitably inscribe them with values, bias or even faulty interpretations.
One evocative example in the exhibition is the basemap of planet Earth. A map completely devoid of clouds, inhabited by inconsistent shadowing and a blanketing noon time zone - or as Ingrid Burrington rightfully states: on the basemap of planet Earth, it is “forever noon on a cloudless day.” In this reader there are three texts accompanying the green axis. First, a reprint of Susan Schuppli’s formidable essay Can the Sun Lie (2014-2015), in which she shares a striking account of how a system of belief can thwart scientific inquiry. Secondly, the manual for the open weather workshop that was used during the im/possible summer school at the Lothringer. With the help of this manual, one can listen to the NOAA satellites and decode their radio transmission to create a local weather report that goes beyond values of precipitation and temperature, but highlights under-represented values like smog, light or other environmental conditions (of pollution). The axis concludes with “Whiteout”, in which I tell the story of an exhausting mountain hike during a snowstorm and the experience of the loss of my physical sensations - leading to an inability to see, hear, or orient myself. While the spatial dimensions are at first seemingly wiped out, an experience of oversaturation starts to offer the environment to me in new, different imagery ways.
documentation:
︎Röntgen, Röntgen photo, print, 1896
︎NASA Voyager / Carl Sagan, Pale blue dot, 1990
︎Medipix, spectroscopic X-ray 2018
works:
︎Alan Warburton, RGB FAQ, Video essay (27:38 min), 2020
︎Memo Akten, Learning to See: Gloomy Sunday, HD Video (3:02 min), 2017
︎Rosa Menkman, Shredded Hologram Rose (4:30 min) 2021
Finally, the yellow axis presents new complexities and humanly un/readable images. This axis focuses on new layers of image processing, added since the advent of AI image generation. During the exhibition in the Lothringer Alan Warburtons video essay RGBFAQ, of which the text is reproduced in this reader, was seen in the basement. In RGBFAQ, Warburton asks what the computational image is? Completing the axis are Memo Aktens’ Learning to See (2017) and The Shredded Hologram Rose (Rosa Menkman, 2021).
The Im/Possible Images Reader
I initiated my - still in progress - research on im/possible images with a single question: Imagine you could obtain an 'impossible' image of any object or phenomenon that you think is important, with no limits on spatial, temporal, energy, signal/noise or cost resolutions. What image would you create? (the answer can be a hypothetical image of course!)
The Im/Possible Images Reader represents a moment in my journey to reflect on my progress and constitutes a collection of texts that range from short stories, to image work, manuals, (technical) documentation and essays that I consider to constitute valuable responses to this question. Some of these materials were specifically written for this reader, whereas others have been generously allowed to be reprinted.
The organization of this publication is modular; the chapters can be read independently. Despite this, we chose the order in which we present them for a reason: to provide a consistently additive flow that builds outwards from the five axes of the exhibition.
In conclusion, I would like to stress that after releasing this im /possible images reader, im /possible images will remain an active research platform, which can be visited here:
www.beyondresolution.info/impossible
The Im/Possible Images Reader represents a moment in my journey to reflect on my progress and constitutes a collection of texts that range from short stories, to image work, manuals, (technical) documentation and essays that I consider to constitute valuable responses to this question. Some of these materials were specifically written for this reader, whereas others have been generously allowed to be reprinted.
The organization of this publication is modular; the chapters can be read independently. Despite this, we chose the order in which we present them for a reason: to provide a consistently additive flow that builds outwards from the five axes of the exhibition.
In conclusion, I would like to stress that after releasing this im /possible images reader, im /possible images will remain an active research platform, which can be visited here:
www.beyondresolution.info/impossible
Part of the research for this reader was conducted in the framework of the Alex Adriaansens Residency at V2_Lab for the Unstable Media. Thanks to director Michel van Dartel and curator Florian Weigl.
0001 open-weather.community at the im/possible summer school
Sophie Dyer and Sasha Engelmann are part of im/possible images with their Impossible Weather Station. An installation that is activated once a week, to tab into a NOAA satellite and read out a local weather report. During the im/possible summer school, the im/possible weather station had its first activation in the form of a workshop. The read out above was done by Anna Pasco, a participant of the workshop.
By Sophie Dyer and Sasha Engelmann:
“The im/possibe weather station is a tactical space for producing counter- images of weather that demonstrate the impossibility of both contemporary weather forecasts and the optics of Google Earth. Once per week, the Impossible Weather Station is activated in order to capture a transmission from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite. For us, the process of capturing this image is more than technical: it involves attending to local meteorological conditions, centring the body in the technical system and sensing the satellite in visible, audible and electromagnetic registers.
Images of weather, from the daily weather radar to smartphone weather applications, present ‘snapshots’ of current weather conditions. These images suggest that weather is uniquely contemporary, it is happening right now. Yet, as Denise Ferreira da Silva reminds us, the very heat in the air is a transformation of the “extensive and intensive extraction of matter from the earth, in the form of fossil fuels, soil nutrients to feed crops and livestock, and the (human and more-than-human) work that sustains capital” over the last several centuries (2018: np). Images of weather are not images of the present; these images inscribe and make visible histories of coloniality, raciality and capitalism."
image "All Possible Landscapes" copyright Jens Schnitzler
0010 HFBK Digitale Grafik at the im/possible summer school
During the im/possible summer school, ten students from HFBK Hamburg took part in a special summer school program; a three-day production sprint in the style of a hackathon, during which they reflected on im/possible images. The image above is of the work All Possible Landscapes by Jens Schnitzler, which was directly inspired by the work All Possible Images by Fabian Heller.
The six student projects that resulted from the im/possible summer school can be found here.
During the im/possible summer school, ten students from HFBK Hamburg took part in a special summer school program; a three-day production sprint in the style of a hackathon, during which they reflected on im/possible images. The image above is of the work All Possible Landscapes by Jens Schnitzler, which was directly inspired by the work All Possible Images by Fabian Heller.
The six student projects that resulted from the im/possible summer school can be found here.
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This Patch
0000 Opening of Im/Possible Images @Lothringer_13, Munich!
0001 The Shredded Hologram Rose @ Feral File
0010 Performative Lecture for COMPUTER GRRRLS
0011 NEW: AN ONLINE CALENDAR!
0100 Unfolding AI / Unfolding Models @MIT Center for Art
15. Juli – 19. September 2021. Imagine you could obtain an 'impossible' image, of any object or phenomenon that you think is important, with no limits to spatial, temporal, energy, signal/noise or cost resolutions, what image would you create? With: Memo Akten, Peter Edwards, Sasha Engelmann & Sophie Dyer, Fabian Heller, Rosa Menkman, Susan Schuppli, UCNV, Alan Warburton a.o. Images are pervasive; they are used to entertain, to guide, to serve as evidence or as tools for discovery. But they can also be invisible, made for machines and by machines in order to filter, track, classify, sort, or delete. As such, they constitute and influence the fabric of our everyday lives. Sometimes it is even said that one's life is now ruled by a regime of the optical. How are such regimes constructed? In order for an object or thing – light or other type of data – to enter the visible domain and to become an image, it needs to be resolved. It needs to pass through a process involving standards, rules and compromises. As a result, under the fold of our image processing technologies, there is a complex system that constitutes our images and the optical regime we abide by. Spanning from all possible images to invisible images, Im/Possible images brings together strategies and methods of making visible. It also explores the conditions of image making today: how do resolutions shape images and how does the process of resolving compromise its rendering? Can one listen to an image? When do aberrations and translations turn into ‘false’ representations? And how has the field of computer simulation expanded the rules and functioning of our imagery? Initiated by Rosa Menkman, Lothringer 13 Halle will host an im/possible summer school and become a space that sheds light on the realms of im/possible images. Through workshops and talks, international guests, local artists and researchers are invited to probe the experimental field of knowledge production with an emphasis on (digital) image infrastructures. |
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0001 The Shredded Hologram Rose @ Feral File
From the shredded side of a Hologram, one can peek into the 3D objects’ Delta Axis. From this perspective, one can see the Holograms render objects, which form a repository of layered information about the Holograms provenance, metadata, and other information that the unscathed Hologram would never prevail.
Now available via the Feral File platform, which offers digital artwork for sale as Bitmark NFTs.
The rose will always be and remain freely available online, under a CC licence, like all my work.
But you can also Collect the rose, the NFT to end all NFTs.... ;)
The Bitmark Property System enables management of digital property rights, without using the Ethereum protocol. Because Bitmark is a smaller, more specialized blockchain, it requires exponentially smaller amounts of energy than Bitcoin or Ethereum.
I considered and reconsidered hashing a work on the blockchain and presenting it as commodity. It was a choice not easily made, which I think both the work itself and my remarks on crypto art published on the INC platform make clear.
0010 Performative Lecture for COMPUTER GRRRLS
01.07.2021 | 18:00 - 19:30
The long awaited publication Computer Grrrls is finally here!
For the book presentation, the editors invited me to present my essay in the form of a performative lecture.
To receive the login details for the event (platform: Zoom), please register via e-mail at event@hmkv.de
Edited by Inke Arns and Marie Lechner, the publication brings together 23 international artistic positions that negotiate the relationship between gender and technology in history and the present. Computer Grrrls explores the complex relationship between women and technology-from the first human computers to the current revival of techno-feminist movements. An illustrated timeline of over 200 entries documents these developments from the 18th century to the present. With contributions by Inke Arns, Claire L. Evans, Elisa Giardina Papa, Marie Lechner, Mimi Onuoha, Cornelia Sollfrank and me ☺
Design: The Laboratory of Manuel Bürger. Dortmund: Kettler, German, English, 17 x 24 cm, 200 pages, ISBN: 978-3-86206-907-1.
More information here
0011 NEW: AN ONLINE CALENDAR!
[imgs == new iteration of les inconnues for Rainbows End festival]
Finally I got myself a bit organised and am now keeping track of my activities here
0100 Unfolding AI / Unfolding Models @MIT Center for Art
My MIT Unfolding Intelligence Symposium video has been released online, watch it here
For the NCAD event with Joanna Zylinska and Rachel O'Dwyer, I recorded a somewhat overlapping, somewhat additive video lecture titled "Destitute Vision"