What does it mean to occupy resources in a digital archive as opposed to a material archive? What can patterns of relative data size tell us about the origin, destination, lifecycle and purpose of these images?
I’ve been playing with ways to visualize the relative sizes of these image files so that previously unappreciated patterns begin to emerge in a more obvious and dramatic fashion. Here I’ve set the vertical pixel dimension of the image equal to its given file size so that the larger data pictures appear to be tallest. I’ve arranged these in a grid, descending in size from left to right, and top to bottom for comparison. I think this visualization lends itself to many interesting suggestions about image use, intention and history.
Also, in a world of limited resources, what does it mean to allocate exponentially more room to one image over another?
Just as an example, the woodpile images remain among the largest (top left, 1005kb) while the 9/11 images remain among the smallest (bottom right, 38kb). At what stage in the lifecycle have these been preserved? Are they intended to be large prints to be appreciated aesthetically or small digital thumbnails to be quickly and efficiently disseminated? Are these “informational” or “artistic,” and in what way? What can we learn about the intended and actual “function” of a digital image based only on size?
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