08 09/16
10:42

Media Archaeology of the Digital Moving Image: Motion Prediction or the Demise of the Frame

Next week 15 September in Chicago,  I’ll be presenting a short paper at the​ Inaugural Communication & Media Studies Conference.
 
Media Archaeology of the Digital Moving Image: Motion Prediction or the Demise of the Frame
 
Abstract
 
At the coding level, in a video codec such as H.264/AVC the otherwise basic unit of all moving images from film to video, the frame, is only an address where chunks of pixels coming from different moments in time are put together. This paper historically explores two mathematical theories from the 1940s that paved the way for the digital video compression formats during the 1990s. The first is the prediction theory by Norbert Wiener to improve anti-aircraft artillery during WWII. And the second are the crypto-analytic techniques formulated by Claude E. Shannon for the transmission of messages over noisy channels. Both theories resulted in algorithms to statistically predict missile paths and encrypt military communications. Today, they are the backbone of the video compression formats installed in discs, TV receivers, online streaming and video conferencing services, camcorders, and mobile phones. This media archaeology on the digital moving image argues that the consequence of turning each displayed picture into a rigid arrangement of pixels and its construction into the statistical prediction of the pixel’s values is dramatic. This historical analysis shows that prediction has generated an entirely new type of moving images in which the temporal coincidence of all pixels within the frame is unnecessary.
 
Inaugural Communication & Media Studies Conference.
University Center Chicago, Chicago, USA
15-16 September 2016
 
Here is the entire program:

http://www.cgpublisher.com/conferences/348/web/program-detail.html

03 03/16
11:21

Comparisons: seven

Hierarchical classification, ordering, ranking Porous, flat branching
Static Adaptive, shifting, flexible
Closed Ill-defined
Screens, surfaces, black boxing Hands-on, cracking, hacking, disassembling
Presentist, futurist Archaeological, temporal shifting
Humanism, rationalism Situatedness, partially, post-humanism/posthumanities
Singular, individualistic Collaborative
Narrative Fragments, non-linearity
Goal oriented, utilitarian Embodied, infrastructural thinking, craftwork

Emerson, Lori. University of Colorado at Boulder
Situating the Media Archaeology Lab: Research, Art
and the Public. Media Art History RE-CREATE 07 Nov 2015.

Source: https://youtu.be/Yhju8INkxds?t=3m33s

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