DCT:SYPHONING

DCT:SYPHONING

Date: 
04.02.2017 19:30
Edition: 
2017
Format: 
Performance
Location: 
Café Stage

Discrete cosine transform (DCT) was first introduced in 1973, but was not widely implemented until 1992, when it became a core component of JPEG image compression technology. Although the DCT algorithm is the backbone of this technology, in-depth knowledge of how the algorithm functions is uncommon, and few are aware of the race and gender issues underpinning the history or circumstances of its development. In Rosa Menkman’s performance DCT:SYPHONING, the narrator DCT Senior describes how DCT Junior first ran an open source Syphon framework on its 64th interval, unveiling the young algorithm’s transcoding trip through various ecologies of complex image fields. Together, the two algorithms embark on an odyssey, and Syphon from the macroblocks (the realm in which they normally resonate), to dither, lines, and further complex realms of wavelets and vectors. Along the way, DCT Senior logs DCT Junior’s reactions to old compression technologies and the newer, more complex compression algorithms, which he can no longer read.

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