Publications:
︎ IM/POSSIBLE IMAGES READER (i.R.D.: 2022) HQ // LQ
︎ Beyond Resolution (i.R.D.: 2020)
︎ Glitch Moment/um (INC: 2011)
︎ Vernacular of File Formats (2010)
Other publications on Resolution Studies:
︎ Introductionary chapter “Refuse to let syntaxes of the past direct our futures”
︎ An introduction of my journey into resolution studies,
presented at #34C3, Leipzig, Germany, 2017.
Video lectures:
︎A Collection of Collections inside a Library for the INC (2023)
︎ Resolution Studies Lecture for MIT (2021)
︎ Destitute Vision Lecture for NCAD (2021)
︎ It takes more than the past to understand the archive video essay for Stedelijk Studies (2020)
Resolution Studies Resolutions do not only consolidate the ways by which we use our technologies, but also how we do not use them (an effect that is often overlooked).
The standardization of resolutions is a process that generally imposes efficiency, order and functionality on our technologies. It doesn’t only involve the creation of protocols and solutions, but the obfuscation of compromises and black-boxing of alternative possibilities, which are as a result in danger of staying forever unseen or forgotten.
A resolution is the result of a consolidation of (or the forging of a function between) technological materialities. Resolutions involve standards, interfaces and protocols (Galloways’ standards encapsulated inside standard encapsulations) and their pre-designed affordances. The cost of media resolutions is that we have gradually become unaware of the choices and compromises they represent. Resolution studies is a theory about the setting of standards and the studies of compromised, other (speculative) possibilities. Resolution studies occupies a space connected to protocol, the interface effect, materiality, habit and genealogical media theory.
Why Study Resolutions?
Our (digital) cultures are becoming more and more complex. From deep fakes to post-uncanny or neo-crapstraction - it is hard to stay on top of the dialogue and keep a grip on the new problems or to even find ‘the contemporary discourse’. Is there still a dialogue? What is really happening now?
There is of course not one ‘now’ in a landscape that has as many fractures as it has participants. And there is also not one truth, past, or future to our digital cultures; they vary as much as the diversity of the perspectives of its users.
Resolutions exist on all levels of the engineering process, and involve procedural trade-offs. As a result, the more complex a technology is, the more compromises its renderings involve. However, these actors and their inherent affordances and complexities are increasingly positioned beyond the fold of everyday settings and outside the afforded options of the interface. This is how resolutions do not just function as an interface effect but also as a hyperopic lens, obfuscating some of the most immediate stakes and possible alternative resolutions of media. Unknowingly, both user and audience suffer from technological hyperopia; a condition of ‘farsightedness’ that does not allow them to see what processes they are taking part in, or that they trigger while clacking on the a keyboard underneath their hands. Rather, they just focus on a final ends to a means.
As an artist, I am responsible to not only critically engage with the new materialities of the digital, but also - and I believe that this is where the ‘new’ (of new media - if you still want to use that term) or the contemporary comes in - to develop a certain fluid literacy of these constantly developing and mutating material languages that impose constraints and qualities on the technologies we work with. To truly engage with digital culture means to be able to formulate or take a critical point of view, involving analysis and active change through building (speculative) alternatives. A process that requires both literacy and training, which is not readily available or accessible for everyone.
Through this research, which is both practice based and theoretical, I wish to uncover these speculative, anti-utopic, lost and unseen or simply "too good to be implemented" resolutions -- to produce new ways to perceive through and use our technologies. To shed a light on the shadow side of resolutions. Whatever is not captured within the framework of our resolutions remains invisible - but these alternatives solutions may still be lingering the realm of alternative possibilities, waiting to be implemented.
Finally, I believe that working as an artist is as much about creating and developing modes of thinking as it is about nurturing and sharing that knowledge acquired through this practice. Let me put extra emphasis on the importance of sharing: all art I create is available online, even after it has been acquired by a third party. Besides, I share the curriculums I develop, presentations and papers I write here. COPY <IT> RIGHT!
All slides of Beyond Resolution
.I started working on course “Resolution Studies” during my two years position as substitute Profess in Kassel.
.
Summer Semester 2018 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Resolution Dispute 0001 : Materiality
Resolution Dispute 0010 : Genealogy
Resolution Dispute 0011 : Scaling as Violence
Resolution Dispute 0100 : Habit
Resolution Dispute 0101 : Institutional Tactics
Summer Semester 2019 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Alternative formats: Manifestos
Emojis - one day workshop
Timetravelling - one day workshop
Posthuman Glossary - one day workshop
Monopolized services (Included an Amazon Fullfilment centre visit with class)
Lets talk about money! (This block started with a fantastic presentation by the Queen of Cups “3D financial domination, online sex work and crypto currencies”)
.I started working on course “Resolution Studies” during my two years position as substitute Profess in Kassel.
.
Summer Semester 2018 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Resolution Dispute 0001 : Materiality
Resolution Dispute 0010 : Genealogy
Resolution Dispute 0011 : Scaling as Violence
Resolution Dispute 0100 : Habit
Resolution Dispute 0101 : Institutional Tactics
Summer Semester 2019 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Alternative formats: Manifestos
Emojis - one day workshop
Timetravelling - one day workshop
Posthuman Glossary - one day workshop
Monopolized services (Included an Amazon Fullfilment centre visit with class)
Lets talk about money! (This block started with a fantastic presentation by the Queen of Cups “3D financial domination, online sex work and crypto currencies”)
Winter Semester 2019 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Genre vs Memes
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic/K
Virtual Materials with Topicbird / Digital light
Whiteout
Light Sculptures
Impossible images
Workshops and guest lectures
Hydra workshop with Olivia Jack
Workshop digital shaders with Topicbird
🔮 ⭕ Magic Circle with Claudia Hart and Alfredo Salazar Caro
Slime Mold synthesizer Workshop with Sarah Grant
.
Summer Semester 2020: What is Contemporary?
11 week long seminar on the contemporary, poked and prodded through different topics of interest, using contemporary warfare and new media technologies as red thread.
Genre vs Memes
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic/K
Virtual Materials with Topicbird / Digital light
Whiteout
Light Sculptures
Impossible images
Workshops and guest lectures
Hydra workshop with Olivia Jack
Workshop digital shaders with Topicbird
🔮 ⭕ Magic Circle with Claudia Hart and Alfredo Salazar Caro
Slime Mold synthesizer Workshop with Sarah Grant
.
Summer Semester 2020: What is Contemporary?
11 week long seminar on the contemporary, poked and prodded through different topics of interest, using contemporary warfare and new media technologies as red thread.
Resolving 'Resolution'
/rɛzəˈluːʃ(ə)n/
A re-reading of ‘resolution’
Defining resolution
The meaning of the word resolution depends greatly on the context in which it is used. The Oxford dictionary for instance, differentiates between an ordinary and a formal use of the word, while it also lists definitions from the discourses of music, medicine, chemistry, physics and optics. What is striking about these definitions is that they read not just diverse, but at times even contradictory. In order to come to terms with the many different definitions of the word resolution, and to avert a sense of inceptive ambiguity, I will start this chapter with a very short etymology and description of the term.
A short Etymology of ‘resolution’
The word resolution finds its roots in the Latin word re-solutio and consists of two parts: re-, which is a prefix meaning again or back, and solution, which can be traced back to the Latin action noun solūtiō (“a loosening, solution”), or solvō (“I loosen”). Resolution thus suggests a separation or disentanglement of one thing from something it is tied up with, or “the process of reducing things into simpler forms.” The Oxford Dictionary places the origin of resolution in late Middle English where it was first recorded in 1412, as resolucioun (“a breaking into parts”), but also references the Latin word resolvere. Douglas Harper, historian and creator of the Online Etymology Dictionary, describes a kinship with the fourteenth-century French word solucion, which translates to division, dissolving, or explanation. Harper also writes that around the 1520s the term resolution was used to refer to the act of determining or deciding upon something by “breaking (something) into parts to arrive at a truth or to make a final determination.” Following Harper, Resolving, in terms of “a solving” (of a mathematical problem) was only first recorded in the 1540s, as was its usage when meaning “the power of holding firmly” (resolute). This is where to “pass a resolution” stems from (1580s). Resolution in terms of a “decision or expression of a meeting” is dated at around 1600, while a resolution made around New Year, generally referring to the specific wish to better oneself, was first recorded around the 1780s.
When a resolution is used in the context of a formal, legislative, or deliberative assembly, it refers to a proposal that requires a vote. In this case, resolution is often used in conjunction with the term motion, and refers to a proposal (also connected to “dispute resolution”). So while in chemistry resolution may mean the breaking down of a complex issue or material into smaller pieces, resolution can also mean the finding of an answer to a problem (in mathematics) or even the deciding of a firm, formal solution. This use of the term resolution – a final solution – seems to oppose the older definitions of resolution, which generally signify an act of breaking down. Etymologically however, these different meanings of the term all still originate from the same root.
Douglas Harper dates the first recording of resolution referring to the “effect of an optical instrument” back to the 1860s. The Oxford Dictionary does not date any of the different uses of the term, but it does end its list of definitions with: “5) The smallest interval measurable by a telescope or scientific instrument; the resolving power. 5.1) The degree of detail visible in a photographic or television image.”
Optical resolution
In optical systems, the quality of the rendered image depends on the resolving power and acutance of the technological assemblage that renders the image; the source or subject that is captured, the technologies and their affordances and the context and conditions in which the image is recorded. Here, the resolving power is an objective measure of resolution, which can for instance be measured in horizontal lines (horizontal resolution) and vertical lines (vertical resolution), line pairs or cycles per millimetre. While the image acutance refers to a measure of sharpness of the edge contrast of the image and is measured following a gradient. A high acutance means a cleaner edge between two details while a low acutance means a soft or blurry edge.
![]()
(a) Two monochromatic light sources pass through a small circular aperture and produces a diffraction pattern. (b) Two point light sources that are close to one another produce overlapping images because of diffraction. (c) Two light sources move so close together, that they cannot be resolved or distinguished.
Following this definition of optical resolution, digital resolution should - in theory - also refer to the pixel density of the image on display, written as the number of pixels per area (in PPI or PPCM). However, in a day-to-day use of the term, the meaning of digital resolution is constantly confused or conflated to refer only to a display’s standardized output or graphics display resolution: the number of distinct pixels the display features in each dimension (width and height). As a result, resolution has become an ambiguous term that no longer reflects the quality of the content that is on display. However, the use of the word resolution in this context is a misnomer, since the number of pixels in each dimension of the display (e.g. 1920 × 1080) says absolutely nothing about the actual pixel density, the pixels per unit or quality of the content on display, which may in fact be shown zoomed, stretched, or letter-boxed to fit the displays standard display resolution.
A resolution does not just mean a final rendition of the data on the screen, but also involves the processes involved in its rendition: the procedural affordances and tradeoffs inside the technological assemblage which record, produce and display the image (or other media, such as for instance video, sound or 3D data). The current conflation of the meaning of resolution within the digital - as a result of which resolution only refers to the final dimensions the image is displayed at or in - obscures the complexities and politics at stake in the process of resolving and as a result, presents a limit to the understanding, using, compiling and reading of (imaging) data. Further theoretical refinements that elaborate on the usage and development of the term resolution have been missing from debates on resolutions since it was ported from the field of optics, where it has been in use for two centuries.
To garner a better understanding of our imaging technologies, the word resolution itself needs to be resolved - it needs to be disentangled. In order to do so, I will first offer a more detailed description of the use of the term resolution in optics. I will then describe its deployment in the context of newer and more complex digital technologies. Finally the chapter concludes with a (re-)definition of digital resolution.
Rayleigh criterion
In 1877, the English physicist John William Strutt succeeded his father to become the third Baron Rayleigh. Rayleigh’s most notable accomplishment is the discovery of the inert (not chemically reactive) gas argon in 1895, for which he earned a Nobel Prize in 1904. But Rayleigh also worked in the field of optics, where he wrote a criterion that is still used today in the process of quantifying angular resolution: the minimum angle at which a point of view still resolves two points, or the minimum angle at which two points become visible independently from each other. In an 1879 paragraph titled Resolving, or Separating, Power of Optical Instruments, Lord Rayleigh writes: “According to the principles of common optics, there is no limit to the resolving power of an instrument.” In a paper written between 1881 and 1887, Rayleigh asks: “How is it, […] that the power of the microscope is subject to an absolute limit […]? The answer requires us to go behind the approximate doctrine of rays, on which common optics is built, and to take into consideration the finite character of the wave-length of light.”
When it comes to straightforward optical systems that consider only light rays from a limited spectrum, Rayleigh was right: in order to quantify resolution of these optical systems, contrast, the amount of difference between the maximum and minimum intensity of light visible within the space between two objects, is indispensable. Just like a white line on a white sheet of paper needs contrast to be visible (to be resolved), it will not be possible to distinguish between two objects when there is no contrast between these two objects. Contrast between details defines the degree of visibility, and thus resolution: no contrast will result in no resolution.
But the contrast between two points, and thus the minimum resolution, is contingent on the wave length-quality of light and any possible diffraction patterns between those two points in the image. This ring-shaped diffraction pattern of a point (light source), known as an Airy Pattern, named after George Biddell Airy, is the result of diffraction and is characterized by the wavelength of light illuminating a circular aperture. When two point lights are moved into close proximity, so close that the first Airy disks’ zero crossing falls inside the second Airy disks zero crossing, the oscillation within the Airy Patterns will cancel most contrast of light between them. As a result, the two points will optically be blurred together, no matter the lens' resolving power. The diffraction of light thus results in the fact that even the biggest imaginable telescope has limited resolving power.
Rayleigh described this effect in his Rayleigh criterion, which states that two points can be resolved when the center of the diffraction pattern of one point falls just outside the first minimum diffraction pattern of the other. When considered through circular aperture, he states that it is possible to calculate a minimum angular resolution as:
In this formula, θ stands for angular resolution (which is measured in radians), λ stands for the wavelength of the light used in the system (blue light has a shorter wavelength which will result in a better resolution), and D stands for the diameter of the lens’ aperture (the hole with a diameter through which the light travels). Aperture is a measure of a lens’ ability to gather light and resolve fine specimen detail at a fixed object distance.
As stated before, an angular resolution is the minimum distance two points (light sources) need from each other to stay individually distinguishable. Here, a smaller resolution means there is a smaller resolution angle (and thus less space) necessary between the resolved dots. However, real optical systems are complex and suffer from aberrations, flaws in the optical system and practical difficulties such as specimen quality. Besides this, in reality, most often two dots radiate or reflect light at different levels of intensity. This means that in practice the resolution of an optical system is always higher (worse) than its calculable minimum.
All technologies have a limited optical resolution, which depends on for instance aperture, wavelength, contrast and angular resolution. When the optical technology is more complex, the actors that are involved in determining the minimal resolution of the technology become more diverse and the setting of resolution changes into a more elaborate process. In microscopy, just like in any other optical technology, angular and lateral resolution refer to the minimum amount of distance needed (measured in rads or in meters) between two objects, such as dots, that still make it possible to just tell them apart. However, a rewritten, mathematical formula defines the theoretical resolving power in microscopy as:
In this formula dmin stands for the minimal distance two dots need from each other to be resolved, or minimal resolution. λ stands again for the wavelength of light. In the formula for microscopy however, the diameter of the lens’ aperture (D) is swapped with NA, or Numerical Aperture, which consists of a mathematical calculation of the light gathering capabilities of a lens. In microscopy, this is the sum of the aperture of an objective and the diaphragm of the condenser, which have set values per microscope. Resolution in microscopy is thus determined by certain physical parameters that not only include the wavelength of light, but also the light-gathering power of objective and lenses.
Resolution and affordances
The definition of resolution in this second formula is expanded to also include the affordances and the attributed settings of strength, accuracy or power of the material agents that are involved in resolving the image, such as the objective, condenser and lenses. At first sight, this might seem like a minimal expansion and lead to dismissal of a simple rephrasing or rewriting of the earlier formula for angular resolution. However, the expansion of the formula with just one specific material agent, the diaphragm, and the attribution of a certain power of this material agent is actually an important step that illustrates how technology gains complexity. Every time a new agent is added to the equation, the agent introduces complexity by adding new settings and rules involving or influencing the behaviour of all other material agents. In photography for instance, the higher the aperture, the shallower the depth of field, the closer the lens needs to come to the object. This also introduces new possibilities for failure: if the diaphragm does not afford an appropriate setting for this equation, it might not be possible to resolve the image at all - the imaging technology might simply refuse or even state an ‘unsupported setting’ error message - in this case it will refuse to resolve an image entirely.
"Resolution." Douglas Harper: Online Etymology Dictionary. October 30, 2015. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/resolution>.
Oxford Dictionary of English. Edited by Angus Stevenson. third edition, Oxford University Press. 2010. p. 1512.
Lorentz, H. Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921. Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam: 1967.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1904/strutt-bio.html
Rayleigh, Lord. "XXXI. investigations in optics, with special reference to the spectroscope." The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 8.49 (1879): 261-274.
John William Strutt, Baron Rayleigh. Scientific Papers. Vol II. 1881–1887. University Press, Cambridge: 1900. p. 410.
Microscope Research Center. Accessed: January 30, 2018 <http://www.olympusconfocal.com/theory/resolutionintro.html>.
Wolniak, Stephen M. “Principles of Microscopy” in: BSCI 427 Principles of Microscopy Fall 2004 Syllabus. University of Maryland, 2004.
Accessed: January 30, 2018. <http://www.life.umd.edu/cbmg/faculty/wolniak/wolniakmicro.html>.
/rɛzəˈluːʃ(ə)n/
A re-reading of ‘resolution’
Defining resolution
The meaning of the word resolution depends greatly on the context in which it is used. The Oxford dictionary for instance, differentiates between an ordinary and a formal use of the word, while it also lists definitions from the discourses of music, medicine, chemistry, physics and optics. What is striking about these definitions is that they read not just diverse, but at times even contradictory. In order to come to terms with the many different definitions of the word resolution, and to avert a sense of inceptive ambiguity, I will start this chapter with a very short etymology and description of the term.
A short Etymology of ‘resolution’
The word resolution finds its roots in the Latin word re-solutio and consists of two parts: re-, which is a prefix meaning again or back, and solution, which can be traced back to the Latin action noun solūtiō (“a loosening, solution”), or solvō (“I loosen”). Resolution thus suggests a separation or disentanglement of one thing from something it is tied up with, or “the process of reducing things into simpler forms.” The Oxford Dictionary places the origin of resolution in late Middle English where it was first recorded in 1412, as resolucioun (“a breaking into parts”), but also references the Latin word resolvere. Douglas Harper, historian and creator of the Online Etymology Dictionary, describes a kinship with the fourteenth-century French word solucion, which translates to division, dissolving, or explanation. Harper also writes that around the 1520s the term resolution was used to refer to the act of determining or deciding upon something by “breaking (something) into parts to arrive at a truth or to make a final determination.” Following Harper, Resolving, in terms of “a solving” (of a mathematical problem) was only first recorded in the 1540s, as was its usage when meaning “the power of holding firmly” (resolute). This is where to “pass a resolution” stems from (1580s). Resolution in terms of a “decision or expression of a meeting” is dated at around 1600, while a resolution made around New Year, generally referring to the specific wish to better oneself, was first recorded around the 1780s.
When a resolution is used in the context of a formal, legislative, or deliberative assembly, it refers to a proposal that requires a vote. In this case, resolution is often used in conjunction with the term motion, and refers to a proposal (also connected to “dispute resolution”). So while in chemistry resolution may mean the breaking down of a complex issue or material into smaller pieces, resolution can also mean the finding of an answer to a problem (in mathematics) or even the deciding of a firm, formal solution. This use of the term resolution – a final solution – seems to oppose the older definitions of resolution, which generally signify an act of breaking down. Etymologically however, these different meanings of the term all still originate from the same root.
Douglas Harper dates the first recording of resolution referring to the “effect of an optical instrument” back to the 1860s. The Oxford Dictionary does not date any of the different uses of the term, but it does end its list of definitions with: “5) The smallest interval measurable by a telescope or scientific instrument; the resolving power. 5.1) The degree of detail visible in a photographic or television image.”
Optical resolution
In optical systems, the quality of the rendered image depends on the resolving power and acutance of the technological assemblage that renders the image; the source or subject that is captured, the technologies and their affordances and the context and conditions in which the image is recorded. Here, the resolving power is an objective measure of resolution, which can for instance be measured in horizontal lines (horizontal resolution) and vertical lines (vertical resolution), line pairs or cycles per millimetre. While the image acutance refers to a measure of sharpness of the edge contrast of the image and is measured following a gradient. A high acutance means a cleaner edge between two details while a low acutance means a soft or blurry edge.
(a) Two monochromatic light sources pass through a small circular aperture and produces a diffraction pattern. (b) Two point light sources that are close to one another produce overlapping images because of diffraction. (c) Two light sources move so close together, that they cannot be resolved or distinguished.
Following this definition of optical resolution, digital resolution should - in theory - also refer to the pixel density of the image on display, written as the number of pixels per area (in PPI or PPCM). However, in a day-to-day use of the term, the meaning of digital resolution is constantly confused or conflated to refer only to a display’s standardized output or graphics display resolution: the number of distinct pixels the display features in each dimension (width and height). As a result, resolution has become an ambiguous term that no longer reflects the quality of the content that is on display. However, the use of the word resolution in this context is a misnomer, since the number of pixels in each dimension of the display (e.g. 1920 × 1080) says absolutely nothing about the actual pixel density, the pixels per unit or quality of the content on display, which may in fact be shown zoomed, stretched, or letter-boxed to fit the displays standard display resolution.
A resolution does not just mean a final rendition of the data on the screen, but also involves the processes involved in its rendition: the procedural affordances and tradeoffs inside the technological assemblage which record, produce and display the image (or other media, such as for instance video, sound or 3D data). The current conflation of the meaning of resolution within the digital - as a result of which resolution only refers to the final dimensions the image is displayed at or in - obscures the complexities and politics at stake in the process of resolving and as a result, presents a limit to the understanding, using, compiling and reading of (imaging) data. Further theoretical refinements that elaborate on the usage and development of the term resolution have been missing from debates on resolutions since it was ported from the field of optics, where it has been in use for two centuries.
To garner a better understanding of our imaging technologies, the word resolution itself needs to be resolved - it needs to be disentangled. In order to do so, I will first offer a more detailed description of the use of the term resolution in optics. I will then describe its deployment in the context of newer and more complex digital technologies. Finally the chapter concludes with a (re-)definition of digital resolution.
Rayleigh criterion
In 1877, the English physicist John William Strutt succeeded his father to become the third Baron Rayleigh. Rayleigh’s most notable accomplishment is the discovery of the inert (not chemically reactive) gas argon in 1895, for which he earned a Nobel Prize in 1904. But Rayleigh also worked in the field of optics, where he wrote a criterion that is still used today in the process of quantifying angular resolution: the minimum angle at which a point of view still resolves two points, or the minimum angle at which two points become visible independently from each other. In an 1879 paragraph titled Resolving, or Separating, Power of Optical Instruments, Lord Rayleigh writes: “According to the principles of common optics, there is no limit to the resolving power of an instrument.” In a paper written between 1881 and 1887, Rayleigh asks: “How is it, […] that the power of the microscope is subject to an absolute limit […]? The answer requires us to go behind the approximate doctrine of rays, on which common optics is built, and to take into consideration the finite character of the wave-length of light.”
When it comes to straightforward optical systems that consider only light rays from a limited spectrum, Rayleigh was right: in order to quantify resolution of these optical systems, contrast, the amount of difference between the maximum and minimum intensity of light visible within the space between two objects, is indispensable. Just like a white line on a white sheet of paper needs contrast to be visible (to be resolved), it will not be possible to distinguish between two objects when there is no contrast between these two objects. Contrast between details defines the degree of visibility, and thus resolution: no contrast will result in no resolution.
But the contrast between two points, and thus the minimum resolution, is contingent on the wave length-quality of light and any possible diffraction patterns between those two points in the image. This ring-shaped diffraction pattern of a point (light source), known as an Airy Pattern, named after George Biddell Airy, is the result of diffraction and is characterized by the wavelength of light illuminating a circular aperture. When two point lights are moved into close proximity, so close that the first Airy disks’ zero crossing falls inside the second Airy disks zero crossing, the oscillation within the Airy Patterns will cancel most contrast of light between them. As a result, the two points will optically be blurred together, no matter the lens' resolving power. The diffraction of light thus results in the fact that even the biggest imaginable telescope has limited resolving power.
Rayleigh described this effect in his Rayleigh criterion, which states that two points can be resolved when the center of the diffraction pattern of one point falls just outside the first minimum diffraction pattern of the other. When considered through circular aperture, he states that it is possible to calculate a minimum angular resolution as:
θ = 1.22 λ / D
In this formula, θ stands for angular resolution (which is measured in radians), λ stands for the wavelength of the light used in the system (blue light has a shorter wavelength which will result in a better resolution), and D stands for the diameter of the lens’ aperture (the hole with a diameter through which the light travels). Aperture is a measure of a lens’ ability to gather light and resolve fine specimen detail at a fixed object distance.
As stated before, an angular resolution is the minimum distance two points (light sources) need from each other to stay individually distinguishable. Here, a smaller resolution means there is a smaller resolution angle (and thus less space) necessary between the resolved dots. However, real optical systems are complex and suffer from aberrations, flaws in the optical system and practical difficulties such as specimen quality. Besides this, in reality, most often two dots radiate or reflect light at different levels of intensity. This means that in practice the resolution of an optical system is always higher (worse) than its calculable minimum.
All technologies have a limited optical resolution, which depends on for instance aperture, wavelength, contrast and angular resolution. When the optical technology is more complex, the actors that are involved in determining the minimal resolution of the technology become more diverse and the setting of resolution changes into a more elaborate process. In microscopy, just like in any other optical technology, angular and lateral resolution refer to the minimum amount of distance needed (measured in rads or in meters) between two objects, such as dots, that still make it possible to just tell them apart. However, a rewritten, mathematical formula defines the theoretical resolving power in microscopy as:
dmin = 1.22 x λ / NA
In this formula dmin stands for the minimal distance two dots need from each other to be resolved, or minimal resolution. λ stands again for the wavelength of light. In the formula for microscopy however, the diameter of the lens’ aperture (D) is swapped with NA, or Numerical Aperture, which consists of a mathematical calculation of the light gathering capabilities of a lens. In microscopy, this is the sum of the aperture of an objective and the diaphragm of the condenser, which have set values per microscope. Resolution in microscopy is thus determined by certain physical parameters that not only include the wavelength of light, but also the light-gathering power of objective and lenses.
Resolution and affordances
The definition of resolution in this second formula is expanded to also include the affordances and the attributed settings of strength, accuracy or power of the material agents that are involved in resolving the image, such as the objective, condenser and lenses. At first sight, this might seem like a minimal expansion and lead to dismissal of a simple rephrasing or rewriting of the earlier formula for angular resolution. However, the expansion of the formula with just one specific material agent, the diaphragm, and the attribution of a certain power of this material agent is actually an important step that illustrates how technology gains complexity. Every time a new agent is added to the equation, the agent introduces complexity by adding new settings and rules involving or influencing the behaviour of all other material agents. In photography for instance, the higher the aperture, the shallower the depth of field, the closer the lens needs to come to the object. This also introduces new possibilities for failure: if the diaphragm does not afford an appropriate setting for this equation, it might not be possible to resolve the image at all - the imaging technology might simply refuse or even state an ‘unsupported setting’ error message - in this case it will refuse to resolve an image entirely.
"Resolution." Douglas Harper: Online Etymology Dictionary. October 30, 2015. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/resolution>.
Oxford Dictionary of English. Edited by Angus Stevenson. third edition, Oxford University Press. 2010. p. 1512.
Lorentz, H. Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921. Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam: 1967.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1904/strutt-bio.html
Rayleigh, Lord. "XXXI. investigations in optics, with special reference to the spectroscope." The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 8.49 (1879): 261-274.
John William Strutt, Baron Rayleigh. Scientific Papers. Vol II. 1881–1887. University Press, Cambridge: 1900. p. 410.
Microscope Research Center. Accessed: January 30, 2018 <http://www.olympusconfocal.com/theory/resolutionintro.html>.
Wolniak, Stephen M. “Principles of Microscopy” in: BSCI 427 Principles of Microscopy Fall 2004 Syllabus. University of Maryland, 2004.
Accessed: January 30, 2018. <http://www.life.umd.edu/cbmg/faculty/wolniak/wolniakmicro.html>.
1. Summer Semester 2018 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Resolution Dispute 0001 : Materiality
A reflexive approach to materiality makes it possible to re-conceptualize materiality itself as ‘the interplay between a text’s physical characteristics and its signifying strategies’. Rather than thinking in the mediums’ material as fixed in physicality, a re-definition of materiality is useful because it opens the possibility of considering any text as embodied entity “while still maintaining a central focus on interpretation. In this view of materiality, it is not merely an inert collection of physical properties but a dynamic quality that emerges from the interplay between the text as a physical artifact, its conceptual content, and the interpretive activities of readers and writers.”
Reflections on materiality should not just happen on a technological level. To fully understand a work, each level of materiality should be studied: the physical and technological artifact, its conceptual content, and the interpretive activities of reader, artist and audience. [the choice of any] digital material is not innocent or meaningless. With enough knowledge of the material, an investigation into digital materialilty can uncover stories about the origin and history of the material, by others.
Resolution Dispute 0010 : Genealogy
While history often refers to the study of lines of descent and origin, the development of families and the tracing of their lineages, in reality, especially in the digital realm, the development of material does not follow any traditional lines of descent. If at all, the ‘historical continuity’ of digital material is one of breaks, voids, bends, forks, in-betweens, legacy, instabilities, ossification, abandonment and turns. In fact, there is no such thing as a ‘technological continuum’. Rather than ‘the history of a digital material’, there are many, parallel, interconnected non-linear, fragmented and overlapping discourses which impact each other in many directions. Thus, digital material, is best described following a genealogical model.
Genealogy does not pretend to go back in time, to restore what Foucault calls an "unbroken continuity, that operates beyond the dispersion of forgotten things". Genealogy is a specific type of history that deconstructs that which once was unified and makes a continuity of discontinuities. It researches the descents and emergences of how systems of affiliation come into play and maps the understanding and meaning of the object accordingly.
Genealogy considers the many affiliated, interconnected and (geo-)fragmented processes that build their own discourses: it intends to shine a light on why particular technologies develop a social-political momentum in a specific point in time and how this momentum changes over time. To write a genealogy means to write the stories of emergence of a use or practice; it reveals the pre-existing battles present at the moment of arising. It threads different strands constructed from ambiguous, pre-existing discourses, it (inter)connects or juxtaposes generations of different communities and their working methods, conceptual themes and politics.
There is no such thing as a complete history. There are only the many stories from different perspectives, derived from uncertain interpretations, that are neither true nor false and the many stories of media technology are constantly subject to revision.
Resolution Dispute 0011 : Scaling as Violence
Following the ideal logic of transparent immediacy, technology is designed in such a way that the user will forget about the presence of the medium. Generally, technology aims to offer an uninterrupted flow of functionality and information. This concept of flow is not just a trait of the machine, but also a feature of society as a whole, writes DeLanda.1 DeLanda distinguishes between chaotic disconnected flows and stable flows of matter, that move in continuous variations, conveying singularities. DeLanda also references Deleuze and Guattari, who describe flow in terms of the beliefs and desires that both stimulate and maintain society.2 Deleuze and Guattari write that a flow is something that comes into existence over long periods of time. Within these periods, conventions, customs and individual habits are established, while deviations tend to become rare occurrences and are often (mis)understood as accidents (or in computation: glitches). Although the meaningfulness of every day life might in fact be disclosed within these rare occurances, their impact or relevance is often ruled out, because of social tendencies to emphasize the norm.
To move beyond resolution also means to move beyond the habitual. One way to do this is by creating noise, for instance in the form of glitch: a short lived fault or break from an expected flow of operation within a (digital) system. The glitch is a puzzling, difficult to define and enchanting noise artifact; it reveals itself as accident, chaos or laceration and gives a glimpse into normally obfuscated machine language. Rather than creating the illusion of a transparent, well-working interface to information, the glitch can impose both technological and perceptual challenges to habitual and ideological conventions. It shows the machine revealing itself. Suddenly, the computer appears unconventionally deep, in contrast to the more banal, predictable, surface-level behaviors of ‘normal’ machines and systems.
To really understand the complexity of the user’s perceptual experience it is important to focus on these rare occurances - to create an awareness of the users habits by use of, for instance, the accident.
Resolution Dispute 0100 : Habit
In the 1970s Joseph Goguen and Rod Burstall wrote that ‘institution’ refers to a slightly more compound framework, that deals with the growing complexities, connecting different logical systems (such as databases and programming languages) within computer sciences. A main result of these non-logical institutions is that different logical systems can be glued together at a substrata level, forming illogical frameworks through which computation also takes place.
Resolution Dispute 0101 : Institutional Tactics
What happens when something exist outside the dimensions or system units of scale? In order to distinguish something of significance from its background environment we must first be able to perceive it. If it remains invisible, inaudible, intangible, or unmeasurable it remains indiscribable and therefore unknowable at least to most of us. [or: Distances from and behind the screen] Scale, aspect ratio, size, frequency
2. Winter Semester 2018/2019 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Screenology Seminar
Includes a presentation first given during Dutch Film Festival Utrecht.
A three week seminar on the screen as display, introducing a short history of the GUI and the interface effect.
The Sci-Fi screen in Hollywood movies and contemporary methods of decollage.
The third week focuses on screenshots and the Desktop Documentary genre.
Tactical Media Seminar
The seminar starts with introducing some of the precursors / roots of tactical media and then moves on to introduce key players within the Tactical Media movement of the 90s. Finally it introduces some works of former tactical media artists and artworks made inspired by the Tactical Media movement and some critique on its revival in 2017.
What could Tactical Media be in 2019, in an age of platformization and when tactical interventions on the turf of the provider are almost impossible?
Becoming Fog Seminar
An introduction to spam is followed by a description of the shifts in the advertisement industry (from billboards / banners to targeted advertising). This is followed by an introduction to the ghosts of the internet - the first friends, bots and other virtual assistants that are net-bound. The block ends by introducing several privacy practices or ‘becoming fog’.
3. Summer Semester 2019 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Alternative formats: Manifestos
From the extinvion rebellion to Xenofeminism, Occupy Wallstreet to Black Lives Matter or Glitch to #Additivism - all these movements have used manifestos to announce themselves to the world. The manifesto genre is by definition timely and politically focused. It criticizes a present state of affairs but also announces its passing, proclaiming the advent of a new movement or even of a new era. Manifestos are often a call for a new vision, approach, program, or genre: they are the site of political, cultural and social experimentation in our contemporary world.
Manifestos exist to challenge and provoke - to enhance conscious self-expression and empowerment. But how to write a contemporary manifesto in 2019?
How to combine a call for action with ciritical digital design to fundamentally expand the character and scope of the genre itself?
AR, VR and ‘empathy’. A presentation for Impakt, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Impakt asked me to give a short presentation on AR, VR and empathy. VR - or ‘the empathy machine’ - has often been used to tell the story of young refugee girls. Can VR also provoke empathy without the exploitation of minor immigrant girls? And what is so good about empathy - what do we win with empathy if we do not have compassion, sympathy, morality or other forms of ethics at play? How easily do we cross the line from emphaty to commiserate disaster tourism?
And what is the relation between AR and VR? Maybe a use of the world ‘reality’ a misnomer for what better could be understood as chimera?
Emojis - one day workshop
The earliest known mobile phone in Japan to include a set of emoji was released by J-Phone on November 1, 1997. The set of 90 emoji included many that would later be added to the Unicode Standard, such as Pile of Poo 💩, but as the phone was very expensive they were not widely used at the time. In 1999, Shigetaka Kurita created the first widely-used set of emoji which was implemented on NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile Internet platform.
Today, anyone can submit a proposal for an emoji character, but the implementation of new emoji is regulated by the Unicode Consortium. Yet every year 70 new emojis are chosen and implemented. How?: the voting members of the Unicode Constortium (Silicon Valley _ White Male Conservatives _ ) pay good �💵💴💶💰💷$ to have a vote.
As a result, certain emojis are missing, while other emojis are the linchpin of controversy.
Timetravelling - one day workshop
With the advent of the digital, time is no longer what it used to be. Instances can be jumped, repeated or stamped: the digital has introduced a new experience of time. But before making such a statement, we first need to discuss the dimension of time.
According to Hillel Schwartz, first there was Aeon time. Aeon time is universally ongoing and impersonal time. As an eternal flux and flow it is always ‘just there’. Schwartz connects aeon time to background noise, the noise that has been there since the Big Bang, the noise that will always exist and is usually suppressed but remains part of any system.
Secondly, Schwartz explains, there is Kronos, from which the term ‘chronology’ stems. Kronos refers to linear, one directional time, business time or incremental, daily routine time. Schwartz connects Kronos to repetitive noise, such as the noise of a dripping faucet. It is sickeningly rhythmic and does not move backwards.
Finally there is Kairos, which is best described as the time of opportunity. This time is dangerous and thrilling, however it can also present itself subtly. Schwarz connects Kairos to the noise of revolution. It is the shriek of invention. The time when someone urges you to seize the moment.
But Schwartz is of course not the only one outlining a general definition of time. Many men have attempted to describe time before him, and many have after... Here Schwartz is merely a starting point to discuss and travel time.
What can be images of time? And what other radical ideas of time are there?
Posthuman Glossary - one day workshop
Posthuman Critical theory is a convergence of posthumanism and post anthropocentrism.
In humanism the 'man' from the West sets the standards to measure all things. PCT rejects any nostalgia for humanism or the 'enlightened man of reason'.
PCT also rejects to see the world as a hierarchy of species and human exceptionalism - as is celebrated in anthropocentrism. As a result, PCT pratices a ‘dis-identification of the familiar’.
Posthuman Critical Theory believes that:
- subjectivity does not make the ‘anthropos’.
- we need to create a sustainable notion of vitalist materialism - the belief that matter itself has vitality and is alive, no matter how lifeless it may appear to be. In doing so, objects and things are described as having agency (Jane Bennett / D&G).
- we need to enlarge the scope of ethical accountability.
Critical (in Crtitical theory) refers to both being critical and creative. Critical is as a way to create cartographies of power, to account for and learn to relinquish unearned privileges and implicit power privileges. The creative side enlists the resources of the imagination and a new alliance of critique. Politically speaking, posthuman critical theory is a practical philospohy that aims at composing a 'missing people', to refashion and reshape the human to include all kinds of bodies (immigrant, of color, female, crip)
Monopolized services (Included an Amazon Fullfilment centre visit with class)
Monopolies and patents shape the (media) industry by strategies such as standardization, undercutting and prohibition. We talk about a few of these stories and about recent strategies of for instance Amazon, that by means of vertical and horizontal intergration has managed to cut out and bypass whole tiers in the chains of production and distribution. In doing so, the concept of ‘carriage’ - to carry over a particular product, service or provide a platform for a certain producer, has gotten renewed importance.
Lets talk about money! (This block started with a fantastic presentation by the Queen of Cups “3D financial domination, online sex work and crypto currencies”)
Money is nothing. Even so, it can move everything. But how can nothing move everything? ...Its because the concept of money is made of agreements, of solidarity, of trust. Not just moral or political trust, but agreements that resonate in a sort of ‘condition’. (- paraphased from the K foundation burned a million quid)
Money is often described in terms of time, freedom, or as an object rooted in the colonialist, modernist, or imperial projects of standardization.
But when do we actually learn to talk about money? Did someone teach you how money works, what are the rules of who gets to own, earn or safe money and how and what are the histories and ‘logics’ of inflation and value?
In fact, money is quite a fictual construct that is only worth something in ‘the right’ context or space - in the ‘condition’ that ascribes its worth. In this condition - or rather at the fringes of this space, the value of money also gives rise to alternative spaces, such as tax havens, Extrastates or bodies of de-regulated flows of capital.
4. Winter Semester 2019 KHK ‘Beyond Resolution’ slides.
Genre vs Memes
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic/K
Virtual Materials with Topicbird / Digital light
Whiteout
Light Sculptures
Impossible images
Workshops and guest lectures
Hydra workshop with Olivia Jack
Workshop digital shaders with Topicbird
🔮 ⭕ Magic Circle with Claudia Hart and Alfredo Salazar Caro
Slime Mold synthesizer Workshop with Sarah Grant
Other or older presentations:
Creating Critical Environments (Gray Area Festival, San Francisco, USA: 2019)
AR, VR and ‘empathy’. A presentation for Impakt, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Impakt asked me to give a short presentation on AR, VR and empathy. VR - or ‘the empathy machine’ - has often been used to tell the story of young refugee girls. Can VR also provoke empathy without the exploitation of minor immigrant girls? And what is so good about empathy - what do we win with empathy if we do not practice compassion, sympathy, morality or other forms of ethical consideration? How easily do we cross the line from emphaty to commiserate disaster tourism?
And what is the relation between AR and VR?
Maybe the use of the world ‘reality’ a misnomer for what better could be understood as chimera or virtual imagination?
Tokyo Threading. ( Sony Centre, Tokyo for Media Festival, Japan: 2019)
It matters what threads are used to construct a garment: using a thread that is stronger than the material that is sewn (the fabric) can end up causing rips in the material.
During my time in Japan I had many encounters with Japanese digital artists who taught me about the importance of how to thread message and material together in very considerate, new ways of presenting.
Dispute Resolutions (34C3, Leipzig, Germany: 2018)
An introduction of my journey into resolution studies, as presented at #34C3
Behind White Shadows: Lenna JPEG, Jennifer in Paradise, The Angel of History. (Elevate festival, Graz, Austria: 2016)
While digital photography seems to reduce the effort of taking an image of the face, such as a selfie or a portrait, to a straightforward act of clicking, these photos, stored and created inside (digital) imaging technologies do not just take and save an image of the face. In reality, a large set of biased - gendered and even racist - protocols intervene in the processes of saving the face to memory. As a result, what gets resolved, and what gets lost during the process of resolving the image is often unclear.
In this presentation, I follow the stories of 3 protagonists of color test cards: Lenna, Jennifer and the Angel of History.
Vernacular of File Formats and Extra Files (Steim, Amsterdam, Netherlands: 2011)
A file format is an encoding system that organises data according to a particular syntax. These organisations are commonly referred to as compression algorithms. The choice of an image compression depends on its foreseen mode and place of usage: for instance, is the file meant to be printed or redistributed digitally, what kind of accuracy will be necessary and what software or hardware will render the image? In A Vernacular of File Formats, I subsequently compressed the source image via different compression languages and subsequently implementing a same (or similar) error into each file, to let the otherwise invisible compression language presents itself onto the surface of the image.
Order and progress (São Paulo, Brasil: 2010)
Wrapping up my residency at the Museum of Image and souns in Sao Paolo, where I made Monglot and prepared for my solo show at Fabio Paris Gallery, in Brescia, titled after this presentation.
Rosa Menkman at Gene Siskel (Chicago, USA: 2010)
Alternatief gebruik van digitale idiomen (Amsterdam, Netherlands: 2010)
Glitch Studies Manifesto (Video Vortex, Brussels, Belgium: 2009)
The exploitation of noise artifacts to create critical media aesthetics (ISEA, Belfast, Ireland: 2009)
Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right (HAIP festival, Ljubljana Slovenia: 2008)