3-channel video installation with sound.
The project explores how works of art transform, and how meanings shift and emerge through lossy streaming compression — the most prevalent method for processing images and sound today.
By the turn of the 21st century, the “technical reproducibility of artwork” became total, increasingly rendering the original obsolete (and at times even leading to its destruction), as a multitude of copies gained intrinsic value. Simultaneously, the exponential growth of information streams triggered the development of streaming compression algorithms with “imperceptible” data loss. As a result, the Machine becomes a mediator of perception during digitization and archiving — processes where the loss of data and the shift in medium can obscure existing meanings or generate entirely new ones. The Machine thus reinterprets the artwork, offering a chance to restore its Benjaminian aura, even if that aura remains virtual.
Exhibited at: Electroboutique gallery, Moscow, 2007.