Broken windows

Overview

"Broken Windows" consists of the last footage shot with a digital camcorder - these are the dying gasps of the camera. On one level, the piece might serve as a de-mystification of the digital image itself; the degradation of the image broadly implies the processes by which the real world is interpreted as video. Video’s constitution of the world as image is laid bare, and it is disconcerting to see the torturous decay of the image as the camera fights to maintain its simulation of the world. On another level, however, the piece implies the impossible mystery of most technology for most viewers. The functioning of the camera, evident in the image only when it fails as here, is something which most of us can’t - or don’t want to - understand. We understand technology so little we must engage with it on a purely aesthetic level as a source of magic or wonder, as we do here.