A Media Epigraphy of Video Compression

Reading Traces of Decay
2023
ISBN: 978-3-031-33214-2
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

Buch, Englisch, 268 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 483 g

This book explores the historical interrelationships between mathematics, medicine and media, and offers a unique perspective on how video compression has shaped our relationship with moving images and the world. It situates compression in a network of technological, visual and epistemic practices spanning from late 18th-century computational methods to the standardization of electrical infrastructure and the development of neurology throughout the 1900s.

Bringing into conversation media archaeology, science and technology studies, disability studies and queer theory, each chapter offers an in-depth look at a different trace of compression, such as interlacing, macroblocking or flicker. This is a story of forgotten technologies, unusual media practices, strange images on the margins of visual culture and inventive ways of looking at the world. Readers will find illuminating discussions of the formation of complex scientific and medical systems, and of the violent and pleasurable interactions between our bodies and media infrastructure.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jancovic, Marek

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Kommunikationswissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1: Media Epigraphy.- Chapter 2: Et cetera in infinitum: Harmonic Analysis and the Material History of Digital Video Compression.- Chapter 3: Interlacing: The First Video Compression Method.- Chapter 4: Viewer Discretion is Advised: Flicker in Media, Medicine and Art.- Chapter 5: Close Exposure: Of Seizures, Irritating Children and Strange Visual Pleasures./

Über Autor(innen)

Marek Jancovic is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His research is centered around the materialities of the moving image, media and the environment, film preservation practices, and format studies.