f0rma.suprema

media-installation 2017-2018
banners / screen / live-hacking / server / self-developed software
In this work, the artist continues to show her interest in the aesthetics of IP cameras, digital video cameras, whose feature is the transmission of digital video stream over Ethernet and TokenRing, using the IP protocol. Unlike analog cameras, when using IP cameras, after receiving a video frame from the camera matrix, the image remains digital up to the display on the monitor. As a rule, before transmission, the image received from the matrix is compressed using frame-by-frame (MJPG) or streaming (MPEG-4, H.264) video compression methods. IP cameras that are actively used in video surveillance systems and remote monitoring of technological processes have many advantages over analog cameras: the construction of scalable distributed video surveillance systems, a wide range of camera settings (smart functions), a resolution not available for analog, the ability work remotely, without interruption and without conflict with other devices due to network cable. The artist found that when you visit the Internet page of an IP camera with an administrator password, you can leave pictures, black boxes and small pictures on the images that the camera can receive, which will be visible to the camera owner or security guard.
The shape of these objects is predetermined by the camera interface: you can leave messages only in the form of text (as the main text marker the artist used the phrase "forma.suprema"), the name of the camera, four black rectangles of any shape or one bmp-picture of standard size 128 * 128 pixels. The opening was the beginning of a series of media interventions, as a result of which the artist left hidden "messages" on the frames of IP cameras (some of which were discovered and erased, and others remained for a long time in virtual space), examining the resulting graphic forms with clear allusions to Suprematist experiments - architectons, planits and prouns.

Alexander Burenkov
curator, writer, researcher