REVIEWS BY STUDENTS: Thompson

Jeffrey Thompson: Every possible photograph in a Post-Media Era
http://www.jeffreythompson.org/EveryPossiblePhotograph.php

by Jimena Aguirre Durán and Jorge Andrés Reyes Rodríguez

Jeffrey Thompson is a Nebraskan artist and musician. The dominant aesthetic in his works such as Wikipedia Loops and 42,607,656 Pixels Of Sky - Sorted by RGB Value, let us think about the assimilation and overflowing of new technologies for the artistic development in the Post-Media Era. Such is the case of Every Possible Photograph, a piece made in 2012 through a customized software with a digital projection. Thompson sought to generate every possible image set algorithmically from any feasible number combination in the pixels that give the gradation from white to black. From a random mathematical algorithm, the piece rhythmically configures every single pixel in a series of photographs that we could finally "see" concluded a trillions years from now.

            This raises the following questions; Every Possible Photograph (EPP) is a work of art or a post-artistic work? And, can it be classified as Media-art or Post-Media-art? According to Jose Luis Brea and his Postmedia Era's text (2002) "the greatest event of our era [regarding the image issue] is the emergence of the movement-image, and image-time". However, how does this apply to a work that may exceed all human eras? These questions suggest that EPP is a paradoxical case. First, as the present and contemporary part, it is a clear example of "time based art". Category described by Brea that refers to the visual issue and concerns the author's idea according to which the images produced technically have a particular internal time , which makes it a clear example of a the post-photograph concept. That is, the technological expansion of the internal time of photography that takes further the narratives of the same event and goes into the representation. However, on the other hand, considering Brea’s conceptions about art and technology, and the way it defines the time when it appears, how can we analyze a work that has a clearly defined beginning, but will exist in all times to come? Definitely Every Possible Photograph can generate a series of paradoxical questions that highlight the debate over the recognition of technology and new media in art.

Bibliography

BREA José Luis, La era Post-Media; Acción comunicativa, prácticas (post)artísitcas y dispositivos neomediales, [Libro en línea], Editorial Casa, España, 2007.

---