Takeshi Murata, Silver, 2006
Back in February Rhizome’s John Michael Boling noted two early examples of artists manipulating digital compression to produce pixel bleeding for artistic effect. The post meant to dispel the idea that a) either Chairlift or Kanye West pioneered the technique, (each had released a video employing the technique recently and fans were squabbling over who stole who’s idea), and b) who did it first was even relevant.
I tend to agree with Boling, though notably this attitude doesn’t always benefit the artist. For example, Hedy Lamarr — a woman most famous for her controversial role in Ecstasy (1933), one of the first non-pornographic films to capture a sexually explicit scene — rarely receives credit for having invented the technique of ‘frequency hopping.’ This principle not only enabled the remote control of submarines, but would later encode radio transmissions and now drives the functionality of cell phones. While I doubt the digital manipulation of compressed data represents the same leap in technology development, recognition clearly doesn’t hurt. Lamarr died penniless.
