Annotations for the self directed text
Annotation on "Faceless project" voice over by Manu Luksch & Mukul Patel
"The pulse of RealTime orients the life of every citizen. Eating, resting, going to work, getting married-every act is tied to RealTime. And every act leaves a trace of data - a footprint in the snow of noise. The New Machine monitors these data traces to ensure that all is well." In "Faceless" by the interdiciplinary media artists Manu Luksch & Mukul Patel investigate address privacy, regulations of public space, surveillance, data protection and systems of control. "Faceless" is described as a CCTV si-fi fairy-tale narrative or visual essay which surfs as a continues journey of figures moving into the public space. The video consists of CCTV diverse footage, where the faces of the protagonists are replaced by dots surpassed by an abstract voiceover. Faceless project is a poetic, philosophical and artistic interpretation of the idea of mass surveillance. It explores the blurred boundaries between private-public, The machine - the machine operator and time – RealTime interconnection. The notion of the RealTime orients the life of every citizen. The notion of the RealTime orients the life of every citizen. "The Machine" as - the ultimate tool, which operates in an invisible, unethical level – tracing data in RealTime – the current time of being.
Annotation on "Defense of the poor image" by Hito Steyerl
In the next scope I will elaborate the fragility of the digital image my current field of interest reflects to the poor images as the opponent of the class images.
In "Defense of the poor images" the filmmaker and writer Hito Steyerl draws an abstract rather metaphorical and philosophical notion of dematerialization of the digital image in broader context.
Poor image is defined as the bastard of an original image or the compressed, reduced, reproduced remixed image. There is inter connection between the glitch theory and claim of new aesthetics to the poor images described by Hito. The poor images are seen as a the digital trash fail to satisfy the promises of "Quality"/ the notion of so called audioVisual capitalism. By this it means establishing monopoly among the class images - high - resolution, immersive and seductive by their nature. ( the upraise of the technology) On the other hand the glitch images implied the fetish of the failure of the technology or the visibility.
The poor images are variables - varying from an artistic, experimental through pornographic, extreme or amateurs.
Moreover they are victims of infinitive recombination, remixes and appropriations. As theoretical reference for this purpose serves "The work of art in the age of digital recombination" by Joe de Mul. Inevitably the exhibition value has been lost but there is partly a revival of the "cult" - the aura of the transience copy.
Nevertheless poor images inherit different value or the exchange value.
They resolve accessibility or high speed and wide range of distribution, re-usability and share - ability which enable participation and modification.
Thus the circulation of the poor images function as an industry where the users are engaged with the creation, the production and the distribution of the content.
Therefore the border between the producer, the audience and the author is vanished.
"Users became the editor, critics, translators and (co)-authors of poor images." The images became the symbolic orphans of the digital culture.
"Poor images are thus popular images—images that can be made and seen by the many. They express all the contradictions of the contemporary crowd: its opportunism, narcissism, desire for autonomy and creation, its inability to focus or make up its mind, its constant readiness for transgression and simultaneous submission. Altogether, poor images present a snapshot of the affective condition of the crowd, its neurosis, paranoia, and fear, as well as its craving for intensity, fun, and distraction. The condition of the images speaks not only of countless transfers and reformatting, but also of the countless people who cared enough about them to convert them over and over again, to add subtitles, reedit, or upload them."
- Steyerl, Hito. In defense of the poor Image e-flux