2.2
Structurations
This part deals with works that produce, modulate and/or mobilize digital images without our being able to detect, at one moment or another, any off-design or off-program functioning of the technological means used. These are works constructed either by generating new images, or by modifying or recombining pre-existing images – the latter may come from footage shot by the artist or from the appropriation of images in circulation, notably on the Internet, but also from digital versions of classic films, etc. – the digital equivalent of the found footage of analog experimental cinema.
The exploration of these approaches that structure in the digital, outside the system’s malfunctions, will be followed by a reflection aimed at drawing out theoretical elements likely to shed light on the associated creative processes. The introduction below, for its part, dwells on antecedents, in the crafts and analog arts, of this type of work in which emergent forms are associated with the generation of new structures.
In this part
2.2.1IntroductionIt is relatively easy to find historical antecedents to creative approaches based on the creation of new structures, since these approaches correspond to the…2.2.2Personified CodeThe previous section gave us the opportunity to grasp how Rosa Menkman, in A Vernacular of File Formats (2010), deceives the computer by forcing it to read a…2.2.3Hollywood in TattersThe work of Gregg Biermann, an American experimental filmmaker, interests us for two main reasons. First, this artist has built most of his films through the…2.2.4Hyper-Collages, Algorithm and Big DataCory Arcangel, born in 1978, is a major figure of digital art in the United States. Among his projects are several that illustrate the strategies addressed…2.2.5Exhausting the ImageIn 1975, Georges Perec attempted to “exhaust” a place in Paris, observing that, while the main elements of the place had already been inventoried, there…2.2.6Algorithm, Between Sculpture and WeavingBefore turning to algorithms, Jean-Michel Rolland was a painter and a musician. In the artist’s eyes, however, these disciplines demanded “too much…2.2.7Sowing Points, Reaping FormsThe programmability of the computer is expressed over a very vast structurable space, making it possible to set in motion algorithmic processes governed by…2.2.8Transposing the SensibleWithin the digital, visual data can be “read” to give form to a sound register and, conversely, it is possible to generate an image from a sound file (.wav…2.2.9A Narrative PlasticWhen, in 2010, Jacques Perconte began work on his medium-length film Impressions (2012), the artist’s approach reached a stage of maturity that capitalized…2.2.10Structurations, PerspectivesThe approaches studied in the preceding paragraphs, as already mentioned, generate forms through the production of new structures, without provoking or…Cite this pageCórdoba, Pablo-Martín. “Structurations”. In Making Digital Images in the Light of Experimental Cinema — Anthropological and Political Resonances of Algorithms in Contemporary Art, Doctoral thesis in visual arts and photography, Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Doctoral School EDESTA (no. 159), research unit AIAC, 2026. https://www.pablomcordoba.com/thesis/structurations/