Media Blackout III

Media Blackout III (2018) DV, 3’, colour, silent, loop monitor installation (alternative format: multiple monitor screening on loop)

Media Blackout III utilises ubiquitous smartphone technology and politicises the social media phenomenon of the “mirror selfie” by challenging the online construction of the idealised self. Rather than “improving” the image through filters, colour correction, soft focus, and so on, the work employs a copying process that progressively degenerates the image.

The work is a digital video constructed from 2,402 screenshots created on a smartphone and is screened on a flat-screen monitor in portrait orientation to resemble a smartphone display. Each image is produced by taking a screenshot of the previous version, beginning with the ‘original’ digital photograph of my reflection in a bathroom mirror. Within 15 seconds, the image degenerates to a point at which it becomes unrecognisable due to image data compression.