MARKER OF THE
DE/CALIBRATION TARGET
DCT REPO //
GENEALOGIES
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HOW NOT
TO BE READ.PDF
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DCT ENCRYPTION
STATION
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JPEG
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IM/POSSIBLE IMAGES
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THE i.R.D.
DE/CALIBRATION
ARMY
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SHREDDED HOLOGRAM ROSE
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The i.R.D. de/calibration target (2023)
“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 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 De/Calibration 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.”
The i.R.D. de/calibration target (which spells FF D8 in DCT, the start of a JPEG image marker) is indexed and seen by satellites, to be distributed and visited online (for now just Bing and Esri world imagery).
The marker makes an appearance in the Shredded Hologram Rose, when a media archeologist from the future visits the marker, which houses the DCT Repo - to find the information on how recalibrate == or de-glitch == the obsolete JPEG layer of a broken AI-Synthesized Hologram Rose.
Commissioned for Out of Scale, the 2023 transmediale exhibition, the De/Calibration Target can only be seen from above through satellite imagery or taken home as a postcard souvenir of this aerial perspective from transmediale warehouse.
Produced by transmediale, with the support of the Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industries NL.