A.PASS, Brussels, BE
2018-02-26
“Codecs perform encoding and decoding on a data stream or signal, usually in the interest of compressing video, speech, or music. […] Software such as codecs poses several analytical problems. Firstly they are monstrously complicated. […] Second, at a phenomenological level, they deeply influence the very texture, flow and materiality of sounds and images. […] Third from the perspective of political economy, codecs structure contemporary media economies and culture in important ways. […] Despite or perhaps because of their convoluted obscurity, codecs catalyze new relations between people, things, spaces and times in events and forms.” Adrian Mckenzie, “Codecs” in: Matthew Fuller (eds), Software Studies, a lexicon (2008)
The third Monday Reading starts with poking holes in different image and video-files. From there we will try put the vocabulary of encoding and compression (Codec, Container, Compression, Interpolation, Interlacing, Artifact, Bitstream, Sampling, Conversion, …) together with some of the key terms in the work of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon (Allagmatics, Transduction, Analogy, Individuation, Cybernetics, …). How do structures make operations appear, and vice versa?
Piercing holes in files and videos, experience the internal structure of images. mesmerizing holes into images, how operations and structure produce each other.