Imperfect scans: Jamie Jenkinson's iPhone video works

Abstract

The essay considers a number of video works made by Jamie Jenkinson using an iPhone. The discussion centres around the visible interactions between the technology – lens, file formats, codecs, resolution, etc. – subject matter and the way the camera is moved. The imagery generated by these interactions often exhibit aberrant effects, such as uneven blur, which point to the limitations and determinations – the specificity – of the technology.

Keywords:

• experimental video
• medium specificity
• digital technology
• video codecs
• camera movement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nicky Hamlyn studied Fine Art at Reading University. Since 1974 his films, videos and installations have been shown at various festivals around the world, including Media City; New York; Toronto, Rotterdam, Hong Kong and London. He has had one-person shows at LUX, London; Ann Arbor; San Francisco Cinémathèque; Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley and EXIS, Seoul. He has written widely on artists’ film and video and his book, Film Art Phenomena (2003) is published by the BFI. He is a regular contributor to Sequence journal and is currently co-editing and contributing to a monograph on the Austrian film-maker Kurt Kren. He is Professor of Experimental Film at University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury, and a lecturer in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art.

Notes

1. Jamie Jenkinson: http://www.jamiejohnjamesjenkinson.com/.

2. Barry Green: Sensory Artifacts and CMOS Rolling Shutter (nd). Accessed April 14. http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/.

3. Karim Nice, Tracy V Wilson and Gerald Gurevich: How Digital Cameras Work (nd). Accessed April 14. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cameras-photography/digital/digital-camera2.htm.

4. Tony Hill: A Short History of the Wheel: https://vimeo.com/17593720.

5. It's interesting how, in the TV broadcasting world, subjective terms like ‘quality’ are used as if they were technical standards. The most enduring one is ‘broadcast quality’ which has evolved along with the technology, and means nothing more than ‘acceptable by best currently available standards’.

6. Cabinet 1-8: http://www.jamiejohnjamesjenkinson.com/p/cabinet-1-8.html.

7. From an email to the author.