First Paper - Draft

Abstract:

Hito Steyerl's widely disseminated paper "In Defense of the Poor Image", the author posits that within the context of modern distribution networks, the "poor" image (one of degraded quality) exists as analog to the path the image has taken from its origins. This path takes form in the planetary network of the internet, and despite the title of the paper, the poor image acts as a metaphor for the act of transmission, as opposed to a static image object. Steyerl defines the value of an image in its ease of flow and distribution, the degraded digital image "mocks the promise of technology". Digital imagery becomes infected with compression artefacts that multiply and intercede across the implicit data of an image and become apparent once the fractal decompression software decodes it and presents it to the viewing device. The poor image wrestles the aesthetic hegemony away from the cult of 35mm purity, and enables the masses to become production-consumers across the distribution networks of the web. There exists a class structure within the visual sphere, where crisp, high resolution imagery is on the top of the quality continuum, and degraded, out-of-focus visuals make up the proletarian class. While there is a key validity in Steyerl's thesis, trends in contemporary art have mistakenly adhered to the aesthetic qualities described in the essay, while ignoring the key point -- that these images are a result of a process, the distribution networks that the data has travelled upon. This has lead to a proliferation of work where artists are creating poor images and using this paper as a defence, which inherently obfuscates the meaning of the poor image, and ontologically places it in the realm of "traditional" imagery. These "psudeo-poor images" lack the political implications of the poor-image process and become high art objects, ready for consumption by the gallery-going strata of society. Additionally, there is an apparent class distinction in Steyerl's essay that places a value judgement on being poor, which is problematic to say the least -- also there is an implicit assumption that the so-called impoverished desire low-quality imagery, an unfounded claim as I would argue that the tools being used are merely massively available, and given higher quality technology, these people would produce rich images as a matter of fact. This leads to the next point, that the essay is highly technologically resident -- the techniques of poor-image creation are merely transitory, so where the argument lies on the side of tech it falls off in strength, as Moore's Law has shown no signs of slowing down since it started being quantified. Ultimately the strength of the argument lies in the possibilities of the network, how this process of transmission can change meaning, and contrary to Walter Benjamin's assertion, the aura of these images does not diminish with each reproduction, it in fact becomes heightened with each repetition and redisplay such that the performatory aspect of the image take precedence over its content.