This experiment explores the hidden structures embedded within digital image compression. By repeatedly saving and compressing an image, the artifacts and patterns of the underlying compression algorithms emerge — traces of the algorithmic forces shaping our visual world.

In an era where digital images saturate our daily lives, their compression algorithms remain largely invisible, functioning as the unseen framework that upholds our visual experience. It is only when these systems fail or degrade that their presence becomes perceptible – through the glitches the functionality of the systems becomes visible.

To investigate this behaviour, I wrote a program in VVVV, which can visualize the process in real-time. Different image types types (like .jpg or .webp) are saved in various sizes and at fluctuating qualitites, to distinguish the impact on the results. The corresponding sound scape is created by analyzing the images and sonifiying their changes over time.