Compression:
A philosophical and technical Introduction

Instructor: Jason LaRiviere Date & Time: Module 1: Saturday, December 8, 15, January 5, 12 11 AM - 1:30 PM EST

DESCRIPTION In this introductory seminar, participants will be familiarized with the political stakes of a media theory of compression. The seminar will rigorously consider the implications of compression—both as a concept and a technical process with a specific history. The participants are asked to think about the epistemological consequences of a shrinking world and expanding data for our media ecology and our politics. Geert Lovink and Marc Tutors, for example, suggest that our current political emergency might have something to do with the power of compressed ideas in the form of memes such as those that helped put Donald Trump in the White House. As Lovink and Tutors suggest, “it is in fact the reactionary right that been most successful in recent years with their oft-repeated slogan that ‘politics is downstream from culture.’” If the forces of political reaction have been the ones to apply the politics of idea compression for their own ends, the liberal imagination —in everything from Democratic Party campaign strategies to digital humanities departments in the university— has been captured by “big data”. The seminar explores how in addition to using data analysis and complex computational operations, “smaller” data streams are desired for a revitalized political project on the left. In the era of over-saturated media environments, perhaps a compression of thought is needed now more than ever. The seminar will also consider concerns related to compression and their aesthetic implications like resolution, fidelity, and definition.

Image: George Condo, Red and Black Compression, 2011

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