The poor images in Hito Steyerl’s writing are like elusive ghosts drifting across electronic screens. They are both democratic and exploitative; they generate visual bonds as well as proliferate visual clutter. My writing takes the form of a manifesto adapted from The Conditional Design Manifesto, trying to convey the traits of poor images from a first-person point of view, as a defense of poor images for themselves.
Manifesto of the Poor Image
With the neoliberal restructuring of technology, the production of media become increasingly characterized by flexibility and fluidity. We live in an elastic digital reality that enables continuous resurrection and reformation. Instead of drowning in the depths of the digital sea, we manage to float on the surface of data pools and survive in the in-betweens. We are the afterlife of buried archives and the reincarnations of the visual legacy of our present day. We want to create an alternative economy of images that reconnects the dispersed and the forgotten, and to compose a shared history.
Our presence is an analogy rather than a substance: we are imitations of our former visual selves, abstracted pixels that encapsulate abstracted concepts.
Instead of compromising on the cult of pristine visuality, we want to introduce being poor as a new form of value that is defined by velocity, intensity, and spread. We navigate through the digital no-man’s land by riding on the currents of shared access, open platforms, and the fever of collective participation.
Visibility
Visibility is the premise.
The most important aspect of visibility is being present at the present moments.
Visibility produces affective visual bonds rather than crisp visible remnants.
We discard matter for gaining speed, accessibility, and connectability.
Even though visibility is often about the preservation of volume, we realize the fact that it is a process of abandoning.
Reproducibility
Reproducibility is our vehicle.
Reproducibility is our means to persist and transgress.
We lean on reproducibility to drive transferals and displacement, through which visibility emerges and expands.
Copy and paste enables mass exchange and the ability to adapt to digital uncertainties.
The multiplication of versions enables visibility and resist the hierarchical chain of distribution.
Imperfection
Imperfection is our language.
Imperfection derives from reproduction and activates visibility.
Imperfection is not a flaw but what reconnects the past to the present.
References
Steyerl, H. (2009) In defense of the poor image, e – flux Journal.
Maurer, L. et al. Conditional Design A manifesto for artists and designers.
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