[ISEA2015] Artist Statement: Nick Bratton — Signal To Noise

Artist Statement

Computer Programme (2014-2015)
Signal to Noise archives pixels extracted from images found on the hosting service imgur. com. Images of memes, ads, porn, landscapes, and cats all live together on imgur’s servers. Navigation to any image requires appending a random five, six, or seven character file path to the address imgur.com. Signal to Noise navigates the site’s servers to find a random collection of images as quickly as possible. Pixels at specified locations are copied from their parent images and archived, contextualizing the site’s visual data not by web address, thematic content, or popularity but by time and space. An accompanying booklet of saturation-sorted pixel archives offers an alternative arrangement of the site’s content.

  • Nick Bratton is a multidisciplinary artist from Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) living, working, and studying in New York City. After receiving his B.S. in chemistry, he went on to the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where he is now a Master’s candidate. His work explores interpersonal interaction in the age of personal and portable technologies, noise in the anthropocene, and perception. Recently he has worked as a teaching artist at Powrplnt and exhibited at Red Bull Studios in New York.

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