Through the formatted language of the web, the image appears on screen in its own specific texture. This texture is sometimes characterized by its resolution, which can give it an appearance more real than life, and sometimes by its compression, making it less defined. Departing from the huge amount of data that originally comprised it, it is made lighter and more easily shared. We recognize it by its general composition, its lack of nuance, the inaccuracy of its colors.

While altered by the medium, the image reveals itself in the predefined space of a technological and virtual frame. The screen becomes the interface through which we interact with each other and acquire what we need: this interface is the space of desire. A virtual space where we can project ourselves, a vortex that consumes us, a grid that fragments us. In it, we represent an often-idealized reality that reflects, a priori, a concrete and sensitive experience of the world. Our relationship to the world becomes both disembodied and amplified by this accumulation of digital content and mediums.

The focus to explore the idea of noise grew out of my interest in the flow of information (and disinformation). In cybernetics, noise is defined as a form of interference in communication signals. It is also, in some way, a natural form of resistance. When a signal is sent (nerve impulse, radio waves, telephone signal, internet, etc.), the interference that prevents its proper reception and decoding is identified as noise – a sound, or a multitude of unharmonious sounds that hinder the clarity of a message.

In analog images, noise can be interpreted as film grain in photography, for example. In digital imagery, it appears similarly, but in the form of colour or black and white pixels. On a larger scale (image or sound), noise can partially or completely alter a signal, causing new textures, forms, and colours to appear. It can also cause glitches or bugs that lead to technical malfunctions. The clarity of a message can be compromised to the point where it has lost its meaning and is interpreted differently or even stifled, making communication impossible.

Essentially, this noise could be a way to resist or tamper with the dominant signal, to distort or subvert it as a way to control its reception. A rumour can be noise. So can widespread news. Someone told me that there was a lot of noise on the stock exchange right now, and that the COVID-19 pandemic was making it hard to identify stock market trends. Protest movements also make a lot of noise; they disrupt the bandwidth of the dominant structure.

We now use images more than ever to communicate, and the screen (television, phone, computer, etc.) is the primary site of these exchanges. I am attempting to measure the wavelength of an image and the oscillation of its “feedback.” In other words, how we become exposed to an image, how it moves us, and how we respond to it.

Mathieu Grenier

Translation by Jo-Anne Balcaen