A Couple Thousand Books On Compression

A Couple Thousand Books On Compression is a book transformed from an essay – On Compression, which quite simply put is a short text that explains why JPEGs look the way they do – and a video installation by Cory Arcangel.

Arcangel's 'A Couple Thousand Short Films About Glenn Gould' is a two-screen video and sound installation (for gallery projection). A Couple Thousand Short Films… is made entirely from material uploaded to video-sharing sites like YouTube of amateur musicians playing their instruments. Splicing together just under twelve hundred one-note extracts from this slew of home-made footage, Arcangel, with the aid of a self-authored computer program, arranges each A, B flat, high C et al into rousing, if slightly raggedy, recital of the first of Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations.

A Couple Thousand Books On Compression uses the same technique Arcangel has used in the aforementioned video installation, except applying the same principals to print. This book aims to be a book made from books just as Arcangels video installation is a video made from videos. In keeping with the same methods used by Arcangel, all books searched for and downloaded for use in A Couple Thousand Books… have come from Google Books – YouTubes book equivalent.

Using Arcangel's essay On Compression for this project seemed very fitting, everyday Google Books scan and compress books from their physical print format to a digital counterpart. This essay not only highlights how JPEGs work but also – through the reading of A Couple Thousand Books… – highlights how the compression has affected the original print quality.

A Couple Thousand Books… is to be read as Arcangel's video installation (played on two-screens) is to be viewed; two supplementary books simultaneously read side-by-side will allow you to read through the book in the correct order. For example: page 1 and 2 in book one, page 3 and 4 in book two. Placed on each page is a word needed to read the essay, this word is highlighted with a yellow transfer - referencing back to how Google Books highlights a specificly searched word.

← Projects