Research 4.7: Image quality


TASK:
Identify animations that uses good and/or bad image quality in interesting ways. Write a short piece (written, audio or animated) that draws together your research and viewpoints on image quality
. Your essay can be presented in written, audio or video form (Approximately 1500 words, 3 minutes audio or 1 minute video).

Reflect on these animations in relation to Steyerl’s quotes above and look up and
read her essay, In Defence of the Poor Image .Illustrate with images if needed.

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/


. For additional context, you may want to review Alan Warburton’s videos Spectacle, Speculation, Spam and Goodbye Uncanny Valley from the previous exercise.

Compression or data compression is a digital process in which image or moving image information is reduced to make file sizes more manageable. Compression reduces file size by eliminating unused digital elements (lossless) or reducing less important information (lossy), such as subtle tones. Too much lossy compression can negatively affect image quality.

Image quality

“The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution.
Obviously, a high-resolution image looks more brilliant and impressive, more mimetic and magic, more scary and seductive than a poor one. It is more rich, so to speak.”
Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image (2009)