Re-present In Defense of the Poor Image with the structure of Exercises in Style
In Exercises in Style, the author keeps telling the same thing repeatedly, the only difference being the style of the story. In this case, to “re-present” In Defense of the Poor Image, in which Hito Steyerl mainly talks about the disappearance and resurrection of the poor image, I decided to repeat the process of the poor image with three factors – technology, economy, and political system. From a translation point of view, it is not only the various ideas in the text that are rearranged but also the information they contain about time, place, and culture. If I use this prompt to reflect on my project, what I have done so far is just to translate the text into another medium through some very random elements, and in the process of translation, a lot of the hidden information behind the text is lost, and such a translation is no different from putting the text in translation software. Changing mediums is a reasonable way to translate, but an inappropriate medium only translates a one-sided message.
Technology
The hierarchy of images is distinguished by sharpness and resolution, which means that images in cinemas are images in flagship stores, while the images circulating on DVDs, broadcast television or online are poor images. During the period when poor images were developing underground, they were copied via VHS and circulated secretly in the form of tapes. However, with the advent of stream video online, the poor images that once disappeared have reappeared. People have access to download, re-edit and upload them, and the results circulate on the P2P platform.
Economy
The focus becomes a new economic element. As high-resolution images look more brilliant and impressive, consumers insist on 35mm film as a guarantee of pristine visuality. Moreover, because of neoliberal policies which include the concept of culture as a commodity, experimental and essayistic films have no place to live. The cost of them being seen in cinemas is very high and therefore poor images lose visibility and are denied the right to be distributed in the public sphere.
However, as more and more audiences become producers by editing and posting poor images again, the value of the image is not limited to the material dimension, an immaterial state that is compatible with the semioticization of capitalism and, this also adapts the poor image to the conceptual turn of capitalism.
Political system
One of the reasons for the marginalization of the poor image is its mismatch with social values. And this condition relates to post-socialist and postcolonial restricting of nation-states, this means that the original archives lose the support of the national cultural framework. And in certain countries, monopolies of audiovisual are established, those experimental images have to survive underground, spread among specific organizations or individuals.
Nonetheless, because the production of culture is seen as a national task, this allows the poor image to spread in the void, as it is extremely difficult to go about maintaining the distribution infrastructure.
Bibliography
Queneau, R. (1998) Exercises in Style. Richmond: John Calder. Extract pp.17-26.
Steyerl, H. (2012) ‘In Defense of the Poor Image’, in The Wretched of the Screen. Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp. 31-45.