jpeg ny05

Thomas Ruff’s jpeg ny05 offers an abstraction of a recognizable subject. The work features the fallen towers of the 9/11 attacks on New York City, yet the image is removed from its original purpose as a conveyer of information about a specific event. The picture is taken from the internet and is purposefully low quality, incapable of being enlarged without an obvious loss of resolution. In presenting this image, almost entirely distorted through pixelation, Ruff demonstrates how photographic information retains or surrenders its meaning according to the way in which it is distributed and deployed, and raises questions about the capacity of digital images to both clarify and obscure. The artwork’s subject is more than the remnants of the twin towers; it includes the gains and losses of meaning through context and exposure. The irony of jpeg ny05 is that an image of 9/11, seen to the point of saturation and loaded with cultural and historical significance, can be viewed anew through Ruff’s interventions.