TORRENT, 2010.
framed archival digital print.
A series of limited edition framed archival prints that explores the aesthetics of broken and corrupted image files. As opposed to a linear 'string' of information, the Torrent protocol for downloading files gathers distributed particles from disparate sources in a more nebulous fashion than a 'bit by bit' transfer. One can imagine it metaphorically to be more of a dust cloud than a river. The works are generated by downloading a Torrent file containing an alphabetised collection of images of b-grade, horror and exploitation films. The selection of the original 'source' data, in this case the film posters is of importance in that it is obscure cultural material, often produced by unacknowledged artists, and designed with a largely 'throw away' purpose in mind. By ceasing the torrent part way though it's random approach to gathering the millions of fragments of data, portions of the image in it's intended original form are obscured, changed, cut-through or smeared.
This process generates some complete images, i.e. with all their intended information and no mistakes, some completely broken images, that are unable to be opened and in between these two states, a series of broken images with differing digital artefacts of the process. This in between state is the works in Torrent.
