An Image Being Mistranslated
Moving Image
Central branches of my practice include explorations of text, syntax, translation and the grapheme. In this video I demonstrate an image being translated by various processes, and attempt to bring into focus the boundaries between digital spaces and tangible spaces. When we capture a digital image, visual data is stored in a digital file as a sequence of binary digits. A file extension informs the computer how to translate that binary into an appropriate signal. By opening an image file in a text editor, I am purposefully mistranslating data from the image into text. The text is indecipherable to the human eye, except for snippets of recognisable language emerging from the randomness. When the text is sent to print, it is further translated into a series of one dimensional lines which when stacked on top of each other form text. The shape of the final printed document changes as it emerges, beginning as a horizontal line, passing through the state of being a square, then becoming a vertical line. The stacking of digital and physical realities into one imageplane serves to consolidate the process into one observable sequence, which contains instructions towards it’s own creation.
