Digitale Partituren I (nach Nicéphore Niépce)

The digitization of the image can be interpreted as the end of photography: photography forfeits its autonomy and the privileges derived therefrom that are cultivated in the analog state. It becomes indiscernible while mingling with particles from other image and sensory sources. Or, conversely, digitization can be interpreted as the perfection of photography: photography participates in the digital universality and gains new, expanded functions. If, in the analog state, it was mainly a technique of reference and a visual aid, it now becomes a technique of preference and an instrument of thought.

The »Digital Scores« can be viewed within the scope of this question, in that they portray the digital code of analog photography’s incunabulum: at the end of photography (its perfection), the project returns to its beginnings, to the first known photograph, Nicéphore Niépce’s »View from the Study« of the Maison du Gras in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, dating from (presumably) 1826. In seven million bytes, each of which is represented by an alphanumeric character, the complete binary description of this photograph is presented on eight square panels – a description that shows us: digital images represent, above all, the reality of their underlying theories and scientific concepts.