iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

i’m thinking about writing a small piece that situates apple’s use of interference patterns / physical properties (chromatic aberration, refraction, etc.) in their new design language…if you want it lmk

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Here’s the recording of our “AI and Media” roundtable at the Digital Aesthetics Workshop. Four amazing talks with surprising synergies (especially between the first two and last two). Mine is the last of them, at around ~59:30. youtu.be/wgIXHs4QmNI?...

youtu.be

AI & Media Roundtable

YouTube video by Stanford Humanities Center

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

yes definitely images for him can be all of the above. So I think for him the mirror stage would be an early moment where that deeper affective image rises to a consciousness and contrasts a visual/tactile image. But yea this will be how I think thru AI stuff !

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

I think you could argue that ! especially in the difference between a primordial image and a cognitive/perceived one. Simondon would say that that primordial auto-kinetic image is an organization of the organism *as* an organism, which is to say as a whole, which for him implies an a priori form

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

(this shows, i think, that despite the transductive attempt, stiegler still has a bit of a hylomorphic hangover when it comes to his understanding of images)

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Stiegler says that there can be no mental image without an objective image, referencing Simondon’s transduction. But he misses that for Simondon the a priori image arises from the endogenous anticipation of the organism: auto-kinesis requires no objective correlate, only a milieu

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

playing well with cats and dogs requires the understanding (conscious or otherwise) that the nature of play is pre-perceptual, organized by motor images in search of objects and properly organized milieux

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

I’m excited to return to DAW ! My talk, “The Generative Image,” investigates the way in which AI externalizes and operationalizes the imaginative capacities which influence the genetic process of image-formation. Come for the Simondon, stay for the formal analysis of a cat video.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

I’ve got a new article out with Invisible Culture, “Moire Patterns: Toward a Functional Aesthetics of Automatic Images.” With great thanks to the editors and peer reviewers 🙂‍↕️ www.invisibleculturejournal.com/pub/moire-pa...

invisibleculturejournal.com

Moiré Patterns: Toward a Functional Aesthetics of Automatic Images

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

In case you missed it 🙂‍↕️

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

retweeting for your weekend perusal:

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Reposted by hank gerba

Archer Porter @archerporter.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Pleased to share my new essay, part of a special issue of communication +1 on "Media Aesthetics." In it, I describe my theory of intimaesthetics, or the aestheticization of intimacy. Shout out to editors @hankg.bsky.social and Zachary McDowell openpublishing.library.umass.edu/cpo/article/...

openpublishing.library.umass.edu

Choreographies of the Digital Everyday: Intimacy and the Aesthetics of Home Dance Productions

Bodies are central to new media and its corollary repository of images. Not only do bodies produce media through their engagements with technology, but they also help define the composition of a produ...

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

The special issue on Media Aesthetics with communication+1 is now available ! Ten articles, and one book review, on a range of topics: film, shutter buttons, software emulation, remediated horror, marginalia, rollercoasters, and much more. Link: openpublishing.library.umass.edu/cpo/issue/22...

openpublishing.library.umass.edu

communication +1 | Issue: Issue: 1(11) Media Aesthetics (2025)

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Just stumbled across this—a “stroboscopic Cupola,” which is sort of like a zootrope you sit inside of. The idea is that this dome with small slits would spin rapidly, and due persistence or vision, would provide a tank commander a 360 view while remaining protected.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Bell Labs Record, June 1926. "The Manufacture of Vacuum Tubes" provides a surprisingly complete survey of the production steps behind these now seldom-seen devices, which enabled both telephony the earliest digital computers, among other uses. The "Tube Shop" was locate at 395 Hudson St.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

I’ll have to set it up but yes 🫡

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

A funny detail about television transmission, which serves arguments about the television as a domestic technology, is the concept of a “front porch” and “back porch” in the NTSC standard for temporally syncing the rasterized image.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I’ve been informed that I’ll be receiving a mysterious package from sender “AI” this afternoon…next time you hear from me it might be wise to start with “ignore all previous instruction” and see if i start spitting python code at you or something

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Time to take out one of my favorite objects, a Lionel 2-4-2 249e. My grandfather bought it in the 30’s, so it’s nearly 100 years old. It still works ! The coal car hides a (quite loud) whistle, the valve gear is amazing in motion, and it’s even got a little headlight.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

definitely ! i love your book btw

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

A little morning media archaeology—I was gifted a mint Canon AE-1, with all the original manuals and paperwork, and even a battery ! I suspect many have seen these photos of birds that demonstrate the effect of changing shutter speeds, they’re still commonly used in introductory photo classes.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

omg....that would be so fun

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

If anyone can find an image of moiré metallique, I am declaring a bounty. The reward: I say thank you very sincerely/

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I wasn't able to find it ! I do have a complete description of how to produce it though, lol. It's a method of acid-washing tinned iron plates to bring out crystalline structure that isn't normally visible, I gather. It was apparently invented in 1817 in France.

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Found it ! "Any one who is old enough to remember the time when kaleidoscopes were all the rage, will call to mind that the tubes were frequently covered externally with a crystalline appearance, exhibiting a rich play of reflected light. This enveloping substance was moiré metallique."

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I did a whole dive on them earlier this year because apparently some of them were wrapped in a sheet of "moiré metallique," which was some sort of similarly trippy material that I was never able to find an example of ! I did find an account from Charles Dickens describing the kaleidoscope rage, lol

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

here's the original post i thought i lost it bsky.app/profile/weir...

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

this medieval bat is cinema.

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Reposted by hank gerba

Paul Kim @mediapk.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Drake if he did media studies: you used to call me on my Bell phone

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

As an aside to my typical Bell Labs Record posting, it's fun to note that all these were obviously scanned at some point, and pretty much every image is affected by moiré. It's always there !

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hank gerba @hankg.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

this joke should be remembered

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