THE POORIMAGE
Hito Steyerl has described the poor image as a photographic harlot: an image made and seen by the many. It perseveres through multiple phases of copying, compression, tampering, and overuse; as a result, it holds a place on the bottom of the image resolution hierarchy. As the poor image accelerates, the quality often deteriorates. It will travel longer and further until only a cluster of pixels remain. To resist the privatization of images, the poor image sacrifices its resolution — the factor which increasingly stands in for quality — in favour of accessibility. Steyerl explains: “by losing its visual substance it recovers some of its political punch.” The poor image circulates through DVDs, broadcast television, or online as a contemporary nonconformist information circuit able to create ‘disruptive movements of thought and affect’ (Steyerl). The restructuring of media production due to the neoliberal influence of the late 1900s pushed non-commercial media out of mainstream view, resulting in the poor image being distributed underground. The poor image ultimately is not about what it photographs or represents, but “its own real conditions of existence” (Steyerl).
