Codec Breeze — conversation with the artist's parents (2009)

In 2009 Harm van den Dorpel was asked to record a conversation with his parents explaining his work Codec Breeze. This is the transcript. The conversation was filmed for Lernert & Sander's project How to Explain It to My Parents. Video reference (archival): http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/_/codecbreeze/

Speaker labels are inferred from the dialogue, not from the original recording. Both parents are present. For most lines it is not possible to tell the two apart, so they are labelled simply Parent. The closing exchange is the exception: van den Dorpel confirms that the final "I sense it" is his mother, so the parent who turns to her — "What about you?" — after searching for the clue is his father (the evangelical preacher). Those lines are labelled accordingly.

Context: Harm's father is an evangelical Protestant preacher who studied theology. This makes the exchange over the work's "spiritual significance" and the baptism film pointed — the vocabulary van den Dorpel invokes is his father's professional domain, and the father's inability to find the meaning his son claims is read in the wiki page as the work's subject rather than a failure of it.

[00:42] Harm: Okay...
[00:45] Harm: I'm going to show you a piece I've done / and then tell you a bit about it.
[00:51] Harm: But I still need to start up the computer.
[01:11] Harm: It usually makes that sound, so...
[01:14] Harm: Oh, I can already see it coming.
[01:29] Harm: Can you both see it like this?
[01:33] Parent: Yes.
[01:38] Harm: It's called Codec Breeze, which refers to / the little breeze caused by a codec.
[01:45] Parent: What is a codec?
[01:46] Harm: For me it all started once when / I was watching Animal Planet on TV.
[01:52] Harm: Or maybe it was National Geographic.
[01:55] Parent: - It's nice with those little bird sounds. -
[02:00] Harm: Every time they showed a still shot, / the image was always sharp...
[02:04] Harm: But whenever the camera made a / sweeping movement...
[02:08] Harm: or if a huge school of fish swam past...
[02:11] Harm: the image was somehow too big to pass / through the TV cable wire.
[02:17] Harm: So then it got blurry and you just saw / a bunch of little squares,
[02:20] Harm: basically because the TV was receiving / too much information at once.
[02:24] Harm: I quite liked the effect of that kind of interference.
[02:30] Harm: So I thought I would make a piece / based on that visual 'noise'...
[02:35] Harm: even though most people see such / interference as something negative...
[02:39] Harm: since it points to a problem with the transmission.
[02:42] Harm: Anyway, I thought it would be cool to focus on that.
[02:46] Harm: But instead of using a moving image, / I would take a still shot...
[02:48] Harm: and record that still shot as a video...
[02:52] Harm: but then at fairly low quality, so the image / would move just from the interference.
[03:01] Harm: What you often see with video...
[03:04] Harm: for example on YouTube...
[03:07] Harm: even if you are watching a film / where nothing is happening...
[03:10] Harm: there still can be a lot of movement / from interference, so you don't always
[03:13] Harm: know for sure if a still shot is actually still / or if it's a filmed still shot.
[03:19] Harm: So that is what I did with these...
[03:21] Parent: Is that comparable to what happens with a / digital TV when an airplane flies overhead...
[03:28] Parent: when the picture gets all distorted?
[03:30] Harm: Yes, but you actually get that more when / something goes wrong.
[03:34] Harm: If something goes wrong, you get all those / coloured squares that mess up the picture.
[03:38] Harm: But I wanted this to be the kind of 'natural' / video that we are all used to seeing.
[03:46] Harm: What I like so much is that the visual 'noise' / you get is essentially random,
[03:52] Harm: so I'm trying to equate that interference / with the idea of chance...
[04:00] Harm: and to give that extra layer of randomness / a sort of spiritual significance.
[04:12] Harm: So there are four short films...
[04:14] Harm: or actually four still images...
[04:16] Harm: because in fact they're somewhere / between still images and video.
[04:19] Harm: Most areas in the image are still,
[04:23] Harm: but here you can see a bit of movement.
[04:25] Harm: It's pretty subtle,
[04:26] Harm: so as far as the moving parts go, / you can't really tell anymore...
[04:31] Harm: if it's a photo that we are looking at or / maybe a slow-moving patch of mist.
[04:37] Harm: Or if it's wind that is moving the leaves.
[04:41] Parent: And what is this?
[04:43] Harm: Those are bushes in a raised bed in a park.
[04:46] Parent: I thought those were people.
[04:51] Harm: Oh, would you have preferred to see people?
[04:54] Parent: I hate to say it, but I don't really see it.
[04:57] Harm: Maybe if you get a little closer / you'll be able to see it moving.
[05:02] Parent: Oh, yes, now I see it.
[05:05] Parent: It really is like mist.
[05:09] Parent: I must say, this all sounds really / complicated to me.
[05:12] Harm: Do you think it's complicated?
[05:14] Parent: Especially when you bring in the / spiritual dimension...
[05:18] Harm: Have a look at this one...
[05:21] Harm: I used the same mechanism here / as in the last film.
[05:25] Harm: So while the last one was a group of / small trees in a park,
[05:28] Harm: this photo shows someone being baptised.
[05:32] Harm: I kept the whole picture as it was,
[05:37] Harm: except for the part that is water.
[05:39] Harm: That is what I ran through the codec,
[05:44] Harm: so now you can really see the / difference in focus...
[05:48] Harm: between the normal, still-photographic / image and the moving image.
[05:53] Harm: So here there's a nice juxtaposition: / the spiritual significance of baptism...
[05:59] Harm: is underscored by the randomness / in the codec.
[06:07] Harm: So in that way the random layer / from the encoding converges with
[06:11] Harm: the religious significance of baptism.
[06:15] Harm: That is what I have tried to get across with this piece.
[06:23] Parent: How important is it to you that people will / grasp what you mean when they see this?
[06:31] Parent: Because I wouldn't have seen what / you just described to us in this piece.
[06:36] Harm: Well, it is somewhat important.
[06:40] Harm: But I think it's most important that / a piece is visually engaging,
[06:45] Harm: so that people will want to look at it,
[06:48] Harm: since it's something that they have / never seen before.
[06:51] Harm: So in this one, the smoke is the only thing / that's moving, although it doesn't dissipate.
[06:56] Harm: And because that in itself is already / a bit strange,
[06:58] Harm: that could generate a certain fascination.
[07:01] Harm: But if they wanted to look further...
[07:03] Harm: - and I don't want to imply that just making / intriguing pictures isn't enough in itself -
[07:08] Harm: but if they wanted to look further and / if they'd see more of my works...
[07:12] Harm: and see the deeper fascination that / underlies those works...
[07:16] Harm: I think those people would be able to / understand a bit more about them.
[07:22] Parent: Pushing boundaries...isn't that a recurring / theme in your work?
[07:28] Parent: Isn't this another example of that?
[07:30] Parent: Or a way of doing that?
[07:32] Harm: I'm not sure...
[07:35] Harm: That might be a bit too general: / pushing boundaries
[07:37] Harm: But maybe you mean the boundary between...
[07:39] Parent: Between anything, really.
[07:42] Harm: Right...
[07:45] Parent: Won't it be just a very cozy, select group of / people who will understand this immediately?
[07:51] Harm: Well, yes, if you really want to understand what / I've just explained in all its depth.
[07:59] Harm: And if you're not familiar with the term 'codec', / you're not going to understand the whole story.
[08:04] Harm: But that's not a big problem for me.
[08:06] Harm: Because if people become intrigued by / an image that they don't fully understand,
[08:12] Harm: I'm already happy with that.
[08:15] Parent: But I still can't tell you what it is.
[08:15] Parent: Do you have any idea?
[08:16] Parent: I think I have a feel for it.
[08:18] Harm: The word 'codec' itself is basically jargon,
[08:23] Harm: so the mainstream may never know what codec is.
[08:27] Harm: But I do think that more and more people / are watching things on YouTube,
[08:31] Harm: so more and more people are becoming / familiar with this kind of visual 'noise'.
[08:34] Harm: And they will start to recognise it as the / interference they always see on YouTube.
[08:39] Harm: As far as I'm concerned, they don't have to / know that it's called 'codec'.
[08:42] Harm: But I do think they will recognise the effect.
[08:43] Parent: If I would see this on YouTube, but I / didn't know what you just told us...
[08:51] Parent: I would just think they were nice little films,
[08:54] Parent: and that it must be fun to play with / that effect.
[09:01] Father: So where exactly is the clue? Because / I do find it interesting, what you're saying.
[09:07] Father: Maybe I'm just not smart enough,
[09:11] Father: but I have no idea about how I'm / supposed to make the link.
[09:15] Father: Even though the picture itself is really interesting.
[09:18] Father: What about you?
[09:19] Mother: I sense it.