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 sci-fi fairy-tale narrative or visual essay which surves as a continuous journey of figures moving into public space. The video consists of diverse CCTV footage, where the faces of the protagonists are replaced by large dots and an abstract voiceover is superimposed. The “Faceless” project is a poetic, philosophical and artistic interpretation of the idea of mass surveillance. It explores the blurred boundaries between public–private, The Machine–the machine's operator and time–RealTime interconnections. We see the notion of RealTime which orients the life of every citizen and "The Machine" as the ultimate tool which operates at an invisible, unethical level—tracing, dating and archiving the data in RealTime—the current time of being.
- Luksch, Manu, Pate. Makul. "Faceless project" voice over[1]
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 the original image or the compressed, reduced, reproduced and remixed image. The poor images are seen as digital trash that fails to satisfy the promises of "Quality"/ the notion of the so-called audioVisual capitalism. This means establishing a monopoly among the class of images: high-resolution, immersive and seductive by their nature; on the other hand, the glitch images imply the fetish of the failure of the technology or visibility. The poor images are variables—varying from artistic, experimental to pornographic, extreme or amateur. (low or high class)
Moreover, they are victims of infinite recombinations, remixes and appropriations. "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Recombination" by Joe de Mul serves as theoretical reference for this purpose. Inevitably, the exhibition value has been lost but there is partly a revival of the "cult"—the aura of the transient copy. Poor images however, inherit different value or exchange value. They entail accessibility or high speed and wide range of distribution, re-usability and share-ability which enables participation and modification. Thus, the circulation of the poor images functions 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 dissolved.
"Users became the editor, critics, translators and (co)-authors of poor images."
"Poor images are thus popular images—images that can be made and seen by 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