Iterative Loss

Iterative Loss is constructed from archival footage sourced from the Finnish public broadcasting company YLE. The original material, filmed by an unknown maker in the 1950s, shows a summer day viewed from a moving car as forest and lake slip past the lens. The image already carries the limitations of format, age, and repeated transmission.

The footage has been extended through the generation of in-between frames until visual artifacts begin to destabilize the structure of the image. With each repetition, the process shifts from apparent restoration toward distortion, as the system tasked with filling gaps starts to replace the past with its own hallucinated continuity.

The work is presented on CRT monitors, where the surface of the display participates in the image’s instability. Rather than illustrating loss, the installation stages a conflict between preservation and invention. The system meant to bridge gaps begins to fabricate them, and the distinction between what remains and what is produced becomes uncertain. The image persists, yet its authority as a record steadily weakens.