Killing Lena (2007, 37.42MB, 2:13 min.)
Jamie Allen sent us a link to this Processing-utilizing piece
of work by him after having seen the post we did on Processing recently.
He explains it very clearly & cogently on his site so I’m just going to lift his text:
The “first lady of the internet,” was Playboy’s Miss November 1972.
Her turn-offs include “Men who wear shorts with white socks and black shoes.”
Lena’s issue was the most widely circulated issue of Playboy ever, selling 7,161,561 copies.
A single scanned image of Lena’s Playboy appearance subsequently took up favor
amongst digital imaging researchers. It has been used as a comparative standard
in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of image compression tests, publications and shoot-outs.
“Killing Lena” is a rendered video series in which Lena’s most famous photo is repeatedly
exposed to the compression algorithms she unwittingly helped to develop.
The videos presented are compression pornography, the suggestion of a
“compressivist art”, and a poetic digital demise.
Not much to add, dear viewer, except to observe the close kinship with
Alvin Lucier’s tremendous sound piece “I am Sitting in A Room”
