Broken Windows consists of the last footage shot with a digital camcorder - these are the dying gasps of the camera. On one level, the piece might serve as a de-mystification of the digital image itself; the degradation of the image broadly implies the processes by which the real world is interpreted as video. Video’s constitution of the world as image is laid bare, and it is disconcerting to see the torturous decay of the image as the camera fights to maintain its simulation of the world. On another level, however, the piece implies the impossible mystery of most technology for most viewers. The functioning of the camera, evident in the image only when it fails as here, is something which most of us can’t - or don’t want to - understand. We comprehend technology so little, that we must engage with it on a purely aesthetic level as a source of magic or wonder, as we do here.

Artist: Richard O'Sullivan.

This video forms part of A Light at the End of the Tunnel, an epic video art trilogy about the human condition which includes seminal works by 30 international emerging artists, and was curated by Perpetual Art Machine (www.perpetualartmachine.com).

The show debuted at Scope Basel 2010 (June 15 - 19, Kaserne), while premiering simultaneously on Babelgum.

To find out more, visit babelgum.com/newvideoart.