Game Art: Loránd Szécsényi-Nagy's "0.43 megapixel" (2013)

A fascinating example of post-photographic practices by Hungarian artist Loránd Szécsényi-Nagy

SZNL. 0.43 megapixel was created with a GameBoy camera, an add-on for Nintendo's 1989 portable console. The camera specs are anachronistic: 4 tone (grayscale) black and white images and a resolution of 128 x 112 pixels, 14336 pixels, which equals to 0.014 megapixels, and an incredibly limited storage capability (only 30 images). The GameBoy peripheral was accompanied by an equally rudimentary printer which could print the images onto thermal paper. Szécsényi-Nagy used these limitations as the  starting point of his project. As he wrote on his website:

I built a panorama stand and connected it to the GameBoy camera, what resulted a 10 x 3 pictures sized image. That utilized the whole available memory space. Studying these problems: what is the minimum amount of the resolution that can be sufficient to 'understanding'? And how come interpretability between the compound panorama image and its parts? These topics made this project to come into being. The title of the series came from the full resolution of the panorama image: 43008 pixels, say 0,43 megapixels.

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Submitted by Matteo Bittanti