I feel that the use of binary code is still important to the animation. Binary is the atoms of the digital world, and by using it, it brings to the forefront of the animation a number of jarring contradictions; incomprehensible complexity from two digits, a single engulfing image made from thousands of minute images with scale created by minutiae, unique seconds of animation through endless repetition, easily interpreted numbers becoming unreadable, and the invisible data of an invisible universe becoming almost concrete in an enlarged, projected state. Visualizing binary will show the enormity, expansiveness and intricacy of the digital universe by effectively showing the opposite. This will provoke a state of confusion, where the visuals override any form of logic and ordering, as the data displayed is not possible to order. Trying the count or order the binary would prove as fruitless as counting stars.
The importance of projecting the image lies in the state of flux between the digital and the analogue, as the footage changes from a real input, into digital through a secondary device, where it is broken down into the most basic form of digital, before being projected using the most basic component of real existence; light, where the small components are enlarged and dwarf the viewer. By changing format so many times before arriving at the final output, the signal becomes almost a hybrid of digital and reality, with the two states difficult to separate.
While it may seem fruitless to confuse and frustrate the viewer, it is important to provoke these emotions as well as overwhelming them with scale and complexity in order to incite something of the sublime.
With the importance of binary in place, I must now determine both an input and a methodology to extract the binary from an image; something which is not easy as it involves breaking down an image to its most rudimentary state.
I placed importance of Schopenhauer’s interpretation of the highest form of the sublime as the contemplation of the universe (1818: 205). To capture this through a camera for instance is impossible. Time based media can never fully capture the essence of a single moment, due to the limitations of the format. The idea of a transparent window reflecting reality through the medium is more of an ideal then a practical possibility, as there will always be mediation as the capturing device, be it film, audio or even paint acts as a buffer between the person recording and the moment itself. With this in mind, the only possibility, as with the portraying of the sublime, is to capture the personal. By filming the nights sky directly above my residence as I look out on it, I may not be capturing the entire scope, the deep lying levels of the universe, the nebulas and the supernovas, but I am recording what I am viewing, and what, despite being a small segment of a far larger picture, is still filling me with wonder.
Recording over the course of one night serves as the perfect input; it is by accounts the closest I may achieve to a completely sublime experience, it reflects the personal, and it is very much of the real and although mediated through the camera the original footage remains true to my intention of showing the expanse of the universe.
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