Observed, Observing, Observer

Observed, Observing, Observer
image/png
1920 × 1080

"A culture is dead when its myths have been exposed. Television is exposing the myths of the republic. Television reveals the observed, the observer, the process of observing". — Gene Youngblood

Initially, a single image of Nam June Paik, >TV-Buddha< at a resolution of; 1920 x 1080 pixels is translated into an animation by breaking down the image so that each pixel represents a single frame, running at the standard movie rate of 24fps. When played, this video will take precisely 24 hours to show every pixel that makes up the original image.

A camera recording at 24fps is placed across from the television displaying the above animation. The information entering the camera is processed by a computer so that after 24 hours, it can reassemble these individual pixels back to a 1920 x 1080 image. Due to errors relating to ambient light and other environmental factors, the new image will not be a perfect copy of the original. This new compromised image is then subsequently compiled to produce a new animation to be displayed on the television screen. This process repeats until the characteristics of the original image become erased or corrupted beyond recognition.

The real-time progress of the above process is projected onto an adjacent wall. This projection also intermittently displays the initial seed image with all the previously reassembled images.

High-definition video 1920 x 1080 pixels.
The total number of pixels is 2073600.
2073600 pixels ÷ 24fps = 86400 seconds
86400 seconds = 24 hours


Credits:
Software: Martin Nadal
Seed image: Nam June Paik, »TV-Buddha« 1974