This two-session workshop explores how mechanical decay or electronic processes of image degradation can be used as an artistic tool to create new and unexpected forms of representation. Using examples of work by contemporary artists including Cecile Fontaine, Nicolas Rey, Mary Lucier, David Hall and Tony Sinden, the tutors discuss the potential of this type of practice as a way of questioning how images are made, how the intentional reduction of image quality, resolution or clarity might be used in current practice and what these processes might mean for a whole new set of aesthetic and critical concerns.

Between sessions participants are asked to playfully explore methods of image degradation within their own image-making processes as the basis for new work in any medium. Discussion of these works forms the focus of the second session.