Steyerl’s article was an interesting read about low quality images, particularly in regards to their proliferation. Online streaming video sites, such as Youtube, have resulted in the resurrection and spread of rare and obscure visual materials in a low quality format; they have also resulted in many people making and propagating their own low quality visuals. Video-recording hardware is more common and accessible among the general populace and practically every modern day cell phone has video recording and/or photographic capabilities, the most accessible of these also generally create images or video that is not of the highest quality.
Thus, people can easily create and spread their own low quality visuals, examples of these are provided by Steyerl in the reading; forgotten films shared among users on P2P networks, museum exhibits recorded on cellphones and posted on Youtube, and bootleg DVDs. A huge factor of the former two is the internet, the relative ease and availability of visual material particularly in a low quality format is amazing, especially taking into account piracy. One can easily search for a current feature film and find a version of it that someone recorded in the theater on a smuggled-in camcorder; the quality might be bad, the sound barely audible and the overall recording could be practically unwatchable, but it is there. When comparing the accessibility and frequency of low quality images in 2011 to 20 years ago, before the growth of the internet, the difference between the two is quite incredible.
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