It’s a Match! Rosa Menkman and Jens Schröter on Compression Artifacts

Compander: History and Aesthetics

 “Companders” are technological systems that compress signals prior to transmission and subsequently expand them. They play a central role in modern sound technologies such as telephony, microphones, and analog sound reproduction. Jens Schröter examines the history and aesthetics of analog sound reproduction by focusing on one of the most influential noise-reduction systems in tape recording: Dolby. Originally developed to improve the quality of cassette tapes, Dolby represents a broader effort by the music industry to deliver commercial, high-fidelity sound. Yet the process of noise reduction can itself generate undesirable artifacts. Under certain (imperfectly calibrated) conditions, companding can introduce audible distortions. These distortions, initially regarded as technical failures, were later adopted and incorporated into digital electronic music. In this sense, sound compression and expansion are more than mere functions; they embody a genuine aesthetics.

Resolving Compression

Rosa Menkman explores the role of compression within the image processing pipeline. While often obscured within standard settings and formats, compression is not just a black-boxed function that supports efficiency. It is a site where technical and perceptual compromises materialise as artifacts and indexical trace evidence. Moreover, compression artifacts have obtained aesthetic meaning. As a result, compression reveals resolution not as a neutral metric, but as a procedural and indexical condition shaped across technical systems, perceptual regimes, and cultural use.

This event is also part of the symposium “Modes of Compression: Aesthetics, Operations, Formats,” which is organized in collaboration with the Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.

Biographical notes

Rosa Menkman is a Dutch artist and researcher of resolutions. Her work focuses on noise artifacts resulting from accidents in both analog and digital media. Complementing her practice, she published Glitch Moment/um (INC, 2011), a book on the exploitation and popularization of glitch artifacts. She further explored the politics of image processing in Beyond Resolution (i.R.D., 2020). In this book, Rosa describes how the standardization of resolutions promotes efficiency, order, and functionality, but also involves compromises, resulting in the obfuscation of alternative ways of rendering. In 2019, Menkman won the Collide Arts at CERN Barcelona award, which inspired her recent research into im/possible images, consolidated in the im/possible images reader (published by the i.R.D. & Lothringer, with support from V2, 2022). From 2018 to 2020, Menkman worked as Substitute Professor of Neue Medien & Visuelle Kommunikation at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. From 2023 - 2025 she ran the IM/POSSIBLE LAB at HEAD Geneve.

Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter has been chair of media studies at the University of Bonn since 2015. He is the co-director of the Volkswagen Main Grant, “How is Artificial Intelligence Changing Science?” (2022-6) and PI of another Volkswagen Project, “The Computerized Palate” (2025). He has published widely on contemporary media theory. Recent books include Medien und Ökonomie (2019), Media Futures: Theory and Aesthetics (with Christoph Ernst, 2021); Beyond Quantity: Research with Subsymbolic AI (with Andreas Sudmann et al., ed. 2023; UFO: Mediale Sichtungen (with Christoph Ernstm 2025); 3D: Historia, teoría y estética de la imagen técnica transplana (2026); Handbuch Medientheorien des 21 Jahrhunderts (with Christoph Ernst, Katerina Krtilova, and Andreas Sudmann, eds., 2026). Visit www.medienkulturwissenschaft-bonn.de / www.theorie-der-medien.de / www.fanhsiu-kadesch.de