STRETCH,
COMPRESS,
DISTORT
Image Time(s)
APPROPRIATION
SLIT SCAN
MANIPULATION
FRAGMENTATION
DISRUPTION
There is as much unpredictable originality in quoting, imitating, transposing, and echoing, as there is in inventing. […] Certain images, objects, sounds, texts, or thoughts would lie within the area of what is appropriation, if they are somewhat more explicit, sometimes strategic, sometimes indulging in borrowing, stealing, appropriating, inheriting, assimilating. […] Plagiarism is necessary, progress implies it.
The project Stretch, Compress, Distort addresses the concepts of appropriation and remixing as creative strategies, based on a reflection on the circulation of the image and the collapse of the boundaries between time, space and authorship in the post-digital era. It explores the recombination and recontextualization of pre-existing cultural content, focusing on video surveillance images available online.
Two complementary components explore the conceptual framework and creative practice around the topic. A printed publication brings together critical texts on the subject, contextualizing the process of developing the website, which in turn appropriates and reconfigures the very observation tools it investigates. The images used are publicly accessible, as live broadcasts from surveillance cameras in locations across Southeast Asia. Taken out of their original context, they are subjected to the Slit Scan process, creating distorted temporal collages where past and present coexist.
Rather than highlighting a particular region or urban experience, the project seeks to emphasize the ease of access to surveillance systems in different parts of the world, revealing the paradox between remote visibility and localized anonymity.
There is as much unpredictable originality in quoting, imitating, transposing, and echoing, as there is in inventing. […] Certain images, objects, sounds, texts, or thoughts would lie within the area of what is appropriation, if they are somewhat more explicit, sometimes strategic, sometimes indulging in borrowing, stealing, appropriating, inheriting, assimilating. […] Plagiarism is necessary, progress implies it.
Michalis Pichler, Statements on Appropriation, 2009
APPROPRIATION
SLIT SCAN
MANIPULATION
FRAGMENTATION
DISRUPTION
The project Stretch, Compress, Distort addresses the concepts of appropriation and remixing as creative strategies, based on a reflection on the circulation of the image and the collapse of the boundaries between time, space and authorship in the post-digital era. It explores the recombination and recontextualization of pre-existing cultural content, focusing on video surveillance images available online.
Two complementary components explore the conceptual framework and creative practice around the topic. A printed publication brings together critical texts on the subject, contextualizing the process of developing the website, which in turn appropriates and reconfigures the very observation tools it investigates. The images used are publicly accessible, as live broadcasts from surveillance cameras in locations across Southeast Asia. Taken out of their original context, they are subjected to the Slit Scan process, creating distorted temporal collages where past and present coexist.
Rather than highlighting a particular region or urban experience, the project seeks to emphasize the ease of access to surveillance systems in different parts of the world, revealing the paradox between remote visibility and localized anonymity.
Leonor Rego Costa