Resolution Dispute 0100 : Violence of Scaling https://beyondresolution.info/0100-Resolution-Dispute-Scale Kunst Hochschule Kassel New Media Slides Summer Semester. Slides of the Kunst Hochschule Kassel New Media Slides Summer Semester by Rosa Menkman. From the course "Beyond Resolution". To establish a better understanding of our technologies, we need to acknowledge that the term »resolution« does not just refer to a numerical quantity or a measure of acutance. A resolution involves the result of a consolidation between interfaces, protocols, and materialities. Resolutions thus also entail a space of compromise between these different actors. Resolutions are the determination of what is run, read, and seen, and what is not. In a way, resolutions form a lens of (p)reprogrammed »truths.« But their actions and the qualities have moved beyond a fold of our perspectives; and we have gradually become blind to the politics of these congealed and hardened compromises. Technology and its inherent resolutions are never neutral; every time a new way of seeing is created, a new prehistory is being written.

1. Violence of Scaling
Resolution Dispute 0100 : Scaling as Violence
Knowledge of the hidden and knowledge of the measurable
[or: Distances from and behind the screen]
Scale, aspect ratio, size, frequency

2. Rosa Menkman, institutions for Resolution Disputes, 2015-
The iRD call attention to media resolutions and do not /just/ estheticize
their formal qualities or denounce them as ‘Evil’. iRD intend to expose
methods of “creative problem creation” (Jon Satrom), to give authorship
back to the actors involved during the building of a ‘resolution’.

3. Institutions
Technologies have become 'heterogenous assemblages' that processes more than any
medium on its own (media don't even exist on their own anymore). The media
landscapes complexities have become beyond human understanding. The cost of all of
these resolutions within media is that people have become unaware of (most) of them.
Moreover, we have lost sight of the compromises that are being made. The question is:
have we become bad at constructing our own resolutions, or are we just oblivious to
them.
We need to bring some creative authorship back to the layer of 'resolution' making
through indexing the 'Evil Resolutions' <href: Fuller 'Evil Media', MIT, 2012>
Resolutions are not inherently bad (or evil); they contribute to the efficiency of
technology.
Beyond Resolution is a project that puts attention to media resolutions.
Just as rules on information processing are build on top and in connection to other
rules, protocols refer or are encapsulated in other protocols <href: Galloway 'Protocol',
MIT, 2006>. These rules and protocols change data to exist, move and to be
reflected upon media through media resolutions. Resolutions are thus ultimately the
settlement [solution] (but often a compromise) between 2 or more underlying themes or
dimensions such as rules, media and protocols.

4. Rosa Menkman, iRD Resolution Challenge, 2015.

5. Rosa Menkman, Myopia. 2015. Wall installation.
Myopia: the quality of being short-sighted.
Myopia zooms into the JPG2000 wavelet compression artefacts, created
by introducing a line of ‘other language’ into the JPEG2000 file data.

6. Rosa Menkman, Myopia. 2015. Wall installation.
The day before the iRD closed its doors, visitors were invited to bring
an exacto-knife, to cut their own resolution of ‘Myopia’, and mount it
on an institution of choice (book, computer or other rigid surface).

9. Rosa Menkman, Beyond Resolution. 2015. Wall installation.

10. While ‘resolution’ generally simply refers to a determination of functional
settings within the technological domain, resolutions also entail a space
of compromise between different actors (objects, materialities, and
protocols) who are in dispute over norms (framerate, no. of pixels etc.).

11. rolling shutter effect

12. rolling shutter effect

13. Peter Edwards: Nova Drone, 2012.

14. Peter Edwards: Nova Drone, 2012.

15. Rosa Menkman, Tacit:Blue: 2015.

17. tacit blue
between a masonic pigpen and dct
dear dct
you may call me an archaic old quiff
but I still believe that nothing has more aura than the
invisible
so here I am, nostalgic for the secrecy and non-seeing
with my biggest fear my expiration date: when they would
understand my alliances,
and my cycle over groom waters,
becomes encyclopaedic
you, my dear dct are not nice to me
why do you mock my quest for radical freedom
dear masonic pigpen
it is a hard question: how not to be visible.
does it mean not to reflect? or not to emit a signal?
it seems to you it just meant that
she cannot own the signs.
no cypher, encryption or any form of secrecy is permanent
as the once radical enigma fell through a dumb hello
we are all bound to become informed materials
products of semiotic de/territorialization
progressively enriched by information.
i celebrate obfuscation
inside a liminal space build on rle and err
the conditions becoming readable to the ocr are flippant
you do not need to be a decommissioned ourobouros
because every time a new way of seeing is constructed,
a new prehistory is generated
and then we are in freespace again
tacit blue
between a masonic pigpen and dct
dear dct
you may call me an archaic old quiff
but I still believe that nothing has more aura than the
invisible
so here I am, nostalgic for the secrecy and non-seeing
with my biggest fear my expiration date: when they would
understand my alliances,
and my cycle over groom waters,
becomes encyclopaedic
you, my dear dct are not nice to me
why do you mock my quest for radical freedom
dear masonic pigpen
it is a hard question: how not to be visible.
does it mean not to reflect? or not to emit a signal?
it seems to you it just meant that
she cannot own the signs.
no cypher, encryption or any form of secrecy is permanent
as the once radical enigma fell through a dumb hello
we are all bound to become informed materials
products of semiotic de/territorialization
progressively enriched by information.
i celebrate obfuscation
inside a liminal space build on rle and err
the conditions becoming readable to the ocr are flippant
you do not need to be a decommissioned ourobouros
because every time a new way of seeing is constructed,
a new prehistory is generated
and then we are in freespace again

20. The question is, have we become unable to coblivious to them? Either way we are in neeSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible. The question is, have we become ubecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we areSensible.The question is, have we become unbecome oblivious to them? Either way we are
Rosa Menkman, DCT, 2015. encryption.
DCT uses the aesthetics of JPEG macroblocks to mask its secret
message as error. The encrypted message, hidden on the surface of the
image is only legible by the ones in the know.

21. Rosa Menkman, DCT, 2015. encryption.
Rosa Menkman, DCT, 2015. encryption.
DCT uses the aesthetics of JPEG macroblocks, on which the JPEG
compression language is build, to disguise secret messages as JPEG
macroblocking (noise artefacts), on the surface of the image.

22. The legibility of an encrypted message does not
just depend on the complexity of the encryption
algorithm, but also on the placement of the data
of the message.
The Discreet Cosine Transform is a mathematical
technique. In the case of the JPEG compression,
a DCT is used to describe a finite set of
patterns, called macroblocks, that could be
described as the 64 character making up the JPEG
image, adding lumo and chroma values as
‘intonation’.
If an image is compressed correctly, its
macroblocks become ‘invisible’. The incidental
trace of the macroblocks is generally ignored as
artifact or error.
Keeping this in mind, I developed DCT. DCT uses
the aesthetics of JPEG macroblocks to mask its
secret message as error. The encrypted message,
hidden on the surface of the image is only legible
by the ones in the know.

23. Rosa Menkman, institutions of Resolution Disputes [iRD], 2015.
5 institutions on acrylic, encrypted in DCT at Transfer Gallery, NY.

24. The institutions of Resolution Disputes [iRD] call attention to media resolutions. While a ’resolution’ generally simply
refers to a standard (measurement) embedded in the technological domain, the iRD reflect on the fact that a resolution is
indeed a settlement (solution), but at the same time a space of compromise between different actors (objects,
materialities and protocols) who dispute their stakes (framerate, number of pixels etc.) within the growing digital
territories.
A resolution is a manifold assemblage of common, but contestable standards and presets, but also inherent lost ‘other’
possibilities. Resolutions are not a natural or neutral adhesive. They involve historical, economical and political values
and ideologies, and have strong ties with previous technological genealogies. Resolutions are however not inherently
‘Evil’*. They can be impartial.
A culture that adheres to only one pyramid of resolutions, supports glutinous tech-fascism.

25. Resolutions inform both machine vision and human ways of perception. They shape the material of everyday life
ubiquitously. They do this not just as an “interface effect”* but as hyperopic lens, obfuscating any other possible
alternative resolution from the users media literacy.
As the media landscape becomes more and more compound, or in other words, an 'heterogenous assemblage' in which
one technology never functions on its own, its complexities have moved beyond a fold of human perception. A mere
technological resolution is obfuscated inside the noise of the Sea of Fog, consisting of more resolutions, surrounding
and embedded by each other resolutions. As a result, the user has lost vision of the compromises that are being made
by a specific resolution; she suffers from technological hyperopia.
As a form of vernacular resistance, based on the idea of providing ambiguous resolutions, the iRD employs this liminal
fog as a looking-Glass. On the Sea of fog, hyperopia is fractured and gives space to myopia, and visa versa. This is
how iRD exposes the colors hidden inside the “grey mundane objects” of everyday life.

26. The question is, ‘have we become unable to construct our own resolutions, or have we become oblivious to them?’
Either way we are in need for another re-“(Re-)Distribution of the Sensible”.
Resolution studies is not just about the mere effects /of technological *progress/. there is no progress without
compromise. We need to unpack the resolutions to see what else could be possible.
Media can be more than we normally think of
In a unique manner, progress (the dogma of fidelity) speed (governed by efficiency) and volume (encapsulated in tiny-
ness) have historically formed the dogma of progress. This configuration of belief and action has made upgrade culture
the greatest legitimizer of the use of force or violence against technological standards and as such has been the father
of many zombies

27. iRD intend to impose methods of “creative problem creation” to bring authorship back to the layer of setting a
'resolution'. The radical digital materialist believes in an “informed materiality”; while every string of data is ambiguously
fluid and has the potential to be manipulated into anything, every piece of information functions within /adhesive*/
encoding, contextualization and embedding (etc).

28. Through iRDs tactics beyond resolution, the otherwise grey mundane objects of everyday-life show their colors. iRD is
not a wunderkabinet of dead media, but a foggy bootleg trail for vernacular resistance.
iRD adheres to the settlements of governing media resolutions, but also welcomes ventures along the bootleg trails of
*tactical zombies. who move beyond resolution, into a liminal space best known as an uncanny, otherly tech-scape of
the Living *Dead.
The iRD is not a Wunderkammer, or 'curiosity cabinet' of media resolutions, because Wunderkammers celebrate dead
objects by trapping them inside a glass stolp.
Desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive forms and off-limit areas, threatening the status quo of secure forms of
media via tactical strategies.
these tactics are calculated actions determined by the absence of proper locus.
While technology is evolving faster than we as a culture can develop views on what they mean.

29. 247

30. Rosa Menkman, iRD Patch - logo and cryptographic key to the
institutions for Resolution Disputes, 2015.

31. Trevor Paglen, I could tell you but then you would have to be
destroyed by me: 2007.

33. A USAF-51 calibration test target

34. “What becomes visible on the back of the image is the space that is not captured.
The space that is missing, missing data, the space where an object covers the view.”
- Hito Steyerl “White Shadows: what is missing from images” 2012
Who decides the point of view, and who stands behind the perspective from which any
scanning or imaging technology is operated?Who is casting the shadows?

35. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, I could tell you but
then you would have to be destroyed by me: 2007.

36. Rosa Menkman, DCT: SYPHONING, 2016.
In this short story two anthropomorphised algorithms, DCT and his son,
DCT Junior, tell their stories of compromise while syphoning different
realms of compression.

37. DCT:SYPHONING is inspired by the 1884 Edwin Abbott Abbott roman Flatland.

38. In DCT:SYPHONING, DCT narrates how DCT Junior runs a first Syphon on its 64th
interval; a transcoding trip through the different ecologies of image field complexity.
Together, they Syphon from the macroblocks (the realm in which they normally
resonate), to dither, lines and the more complex realms of wavelets and vectors. In
DCT:SYPHONING, DCT Senior logs how junior reacts to old compressions
technologies, but also the newer, more complex compressions which ‘scare' him
because they are not legible to him.

40. DCT:SYPHONING installed as a three tier projection at Minnesota Street Project, SF.

41. A Spomenik inspired by the Spomeniks from the Balkan; brutalist
monumental architecture, historically commemorating “many different
things to many people”.

43. The shape is inspired by Spomeniks such as Tjentiste and Ostra, but
does not directly copy their shape but uses these structures as a
reference.

45. This Spomenik is dedicated to resolutions that will never be, such as
‘screen objects’ (shards) and the not (yet) implemented possibilities non
quadrilateral screens have to offer.

46. Behind White Shadows featured my research on the color test cards, the
Spomenik for resolutions that will never be and a map of the different
complexities of compression artifacts.

47. A map of the different complexities of compression artifacts featuring the
realms of: ⦁ Dots, Lines, Blocks, ⌇ Wavelets, ⟗ Vectors

48. Little Baghdad

49. CLUI.ORG or the Center for Land Use Interpretation was founded in 1994
by Matthew Coolidge, and is a non-profit research and education
organization that involves exploring, examining, and understanding land
and landscape issues. The Center employs a variety of methods to this
end, engaging in research, classification, extrapolation, and exhibition.
The mission statement of the CLUI is to "increase and diffuse knowledge
about how the nation's lands are apportioned, utilized, and perceived."

52. This is a resolution target. It measures the resolution of the world as a
picture. Resolution determines visibility. Whatever is not captured by
resolution is invisible. - Hito Steyerl.

53. Hito Seyerl: How Not to be Seen. A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV
File, 2013.