[detail of p. 8 from standard test pages for early fax transmission] Our common processes and protocols for digitization rely on a finite corpus of sample images, movies, objects and texts. Before consumers had access to such common formats as JPEG image compression or Quicktime videos, researchers stared at a few choice test subjects for hours and hours, until these images became mere indicators of fidelity, devoid of content. For new viewers, these dead images, more index than symbol, are as arbitrary and puzzling as any meme. Like image macros, they point more to previous viewings than to the strange referents they contain. Yet the referents hang around like ghosts, and make me wonder how our formats would differ if other images had happened to be lying around the labs. If you hold to the blunt criticism that digital life carries more information than context, then these test images are the ur-symbols of our data-cult. I find it pleasurable and useful to reach back and look at these objects out of their original research setting, to let questions of content and context rush back in. If lena.tif is the most famous of these test subjects, other common test subjects in image compression reveal how poorly-suited the "Lena" TIFF is to demonstrating real-world fidelity problems. Right up there with lena.tif in popularity, if not in infamy, are these three images. Like Lena, each are typically provided at 512x512px, 72dpi, in uncompressed TIFF format. Compared to Lena, they present clearer technical problems to solve.
[from left: baboon.tif, goldhill.tif, peppers.tif] Looking at these three - often found in the same directory online - we see both a range of technical challenges and a range of hoped-for applications for digital imaging. Baboon.tif (actually a mandrill) and peppers.tif offer some obvious opportunity for color correction and testing through contrast, though it could be asked - how would most people know exactly how blue the mandrill should be? In fact, those who set standards for compression formats rely on more than subjective judgment of an individual image. Standards bodies such as the Joint Photographic Experts Group have released other test images that contain embedded data, hidden characters and markers to be sent and received through the encoding process, as in steganography. Baboon.tif brings some texture challenges, and goldhill.tif (a photograph of a street in Dorset) some opportunities for comparing the same algorithm on plants and architecture. There's also some good opportunity in goldhill.tif for establishing clear aerial perspective and depth of field. Peppers.tif provides us with our only reflective surfaces in the early sets. So a set of desires from imagery emerges here, both in form and content. What might we want from digital images? Apparently we would want, in addition to faithful rendering of exposed human skin, easy depiction of clearly marked and identifiable color, the rendering of deep space and diverse surface textures, glosses. We might also see here some imagined future uses for digital photography - education(baboon), tourism(goldhill), and sales(peppers). Others images pop up from time to time, and some companies work from their own batch of recognizable and abstract imagers. Other common characters include the Cameraman, a fishing boat, and someone called Zelda.
[from left: cameraman.tif, boat.tif, zelda.tif] If we look back a step in technological history, we find the eight standard test images [PDF link] for fax technology, which also provide both a range of technical problems and a revealing survey of hoped-for applications.
[from left: CCIT p.8, CCIT p.7, CCIT p.2] Looking at these fax subjects, we're also reminded of the origins of image compression in communication theory - and how all our visible digital stimuli have roots in the encoding and transmission of audio data. Just as in the longer media histories of McLuhan and Ong, the ear precedes the eye in the story of digitization. Today we may throw around the metaphor of image as information with abandon, but the language is not figurative in these cases. In this purest form of the analogy, we see how the understanding of images as information can literally drain the subject away. When I imagine these images proliferating through labs, machines, academic papers, and conference screens, I'm struck by how freely they fly, wholly unencumbered by intellectual property issues, wrung free of aura or content, the purest form of visual data. Yet assembled again into a collection, their mysterious content and context rushes back, through the pleasure of the wunderkammer, and the arbitrary nature of science's subjects. In the next installment of the series, we'll look at the test subjects for 3D modeling - and learn how many ways one can slice a Buddha. Eventually we'll look at examples from video and text as well, before moving to the recent return of proprietary approaches to test images, in facial recognition and data-mining. View the first installment of this series here. |
|||
In an exciting effort to cultivate new perspectives on the media arts landscape, Artengine (Ottawa) and Vague Terrain (Toronto) are collaborating on a residency for an emerging critic or cultural journalist from the Ottawa-Gatineau area. For one year the selected participant will pen a monthly cross-post to the Vague Terrain and Artengine blogs. The residency kicks off on May 6th with a paid trip to the 2010 Elektra Festival in Montréal to post reviews and more from one of North America's premiere digital culture events. Applicants must be based in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, and are requested to send a resume and letter describing their interest in the electronic and media arts as well as what they would bring to the respective online publications. You may also submit links to previous online writings. The successful applicant will receive a $1,200.00 stipend; one trip (Ottawa-Montreal) including travel, accommodation and per diem during the festival; and one festival pass to all Elektra events. The resident will also receive workshops from the Ottawa Art Gallery during their 2011 critical writing series Articulation. Applicants must be available for travel to Montréal from May 5th to 9th, 2010. Please submit letters and CV in PDF form to artistic@artengine.ca The deadline for submission is Monday April 5th. The successful applicant will be notified by April 15th, 2010. For questions or further information please contact Artengine's artistic director Ryan Stec at the email address listed above. About Artengine Artengine is non-profit artist-run centre that foster democratic and innovative approach to creative expression with technology. Based in Ottawa-Gatineau, Artengine runs a modular media and electronics laboratory, produces the biennial Electric Fields festival and operates an artist-run server providing online tools to artists and cultural organizations. About Vague Terrain Vague Terrain is a web based digital arts publication that showcases the creative practice of a variety of artists, musicians and scholars. Vague Terrain produces three to four journal issues a year and these themed publications often emerge from the expertise and network of niche guest curators (who have recently included Joshua Noble, Kim Cascone and Paul Prudence). Content consists of curated visual, audio and written works, and over the last two years the journal has been complimented with an increasingly active blog produced by a team of international contributors. |
|||
LiWoLi 2010 is an open lab focusing on Free /Open Source Software (FLOSS), Open Hardware and open contents in digital art and culture. This event will offer workshops, lectures, presentations and performances. For anyone interested in these subjects, participation in the entire program is free. The 2010 Liwoli edition will take place in Linz, Austria and it will focus on DIT, i.e. the Art of "doing it together". Liwoli is seeking contributions within the field of Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS), open hardware, art & culture, learning & teaching developed by groups, collective, multiple entities that have realized projects "successfully" or even "less successfully" and want to make their tools and works freely available and distribute them. The three main categories are Free and Open Source Tools, Free and Open Source Software – Sharing, Learning and Teaching, Hack Reality. Online submission is open until March 19th. |
|||
