This issue of RESOLUTION looks at the most elementary building block of a digital image. It is nerdy, utterly unsexy, but nevertheless has remained enigmatic. This issue looks at pixels from a technical, ethical, artistic, and economic viewpoint.

Essays:

1. Giacomo Mercuriali discusses how computer-generated pictures, such as appeared to defame Jamel Kashoggi, rely on the same ideas of veracity as in traditional photography.

2. Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani looks at the relationship between pixelisation, atrocity images, and spectatorship through the work what remains by belit sağ, offering an ethical reading of the use of pixels.

3. Alvy Ray Smith, co-founder of Pixar Studios, has given permission to republish his memo that technically lays out what a pixel is. He is currently working on the Biography of the Pixel, which is now seven years in the making.

4. The section “Devices” enters the discussion about the pixel from the viewpoint of a camera, the Digital Bolex. Caszimir Cleutjens discusses this spastically anachronistic device with filmmaker Tanguy De Donder, who used the camera for his film Je suis un Monstre.

5. The section “Debates” restages a timely debate. Caszimir Cleutjens has put Lev Manovich and William J. Mitchell in a direct confrontation regarding the question if digital images are fundamentally different from traditional photography.

Editor: Laurens Otto, Jochem van Laarhoven
Design: D-E-A-L
Year: 2019
Pages: 96
Dimensions: 6.7 x 10.5 in.
Cover: Softcover
ISBN: 978-94-93148-19-2
Language: English