Loss –
When the jpeg format is chosen to save a picture in order to make it fit into a smaller digital space, we sacrifice details of the photograph – miniscule details, one or two pixels in size. I have now created a picture made up of the details that we often let forgo in this manner. I was interested in learning if acceptable losses did indeed represent no loss of value. The difference between high and low quality compressions of my pictures provided me with the pixels otherwise lost to digital interference. I have applied this method to all my pictures for the last half a year in order to regain all the details that a mathematical algorithm would otherwise have judged useless. I then synthesised several hundreds of these pictures in order to make the “face” of jpeg compression appear.
“In the process of JPEG compression we divide the picture into blocks of 8x8 pixels and apply a transformation to these 64 pixels as a unit. Originally this method was justified by the fact that at the time of its invention integrated circuit technology was limited to such processing capacity. However, the 8x8 technology proved useful and thus have remained unchanged.” source: wikipedia