Thomas Ruffs book “jpegs” is an interesting piece of art – using found images. Ruff plays with their resolution to produce low-grade images that give have us look at things in a different way. However, it does lead to a question is it still photography.
According to David Campany in his review at http://davidcampany.com/thomas-ruff-the-aesthetics-of-the-pixel/, Ruff is just following in the footsteps of many other artists before him using found images to try to explain the culture of the time.
Campany goes on to talk about grain and pixels as that pixel has become the new grain in photography; however it is a little more clinical than grain that came organically from developing film and that by applying this technique draws the viewer to what is some cases the familiar in an abstract way.
Colberg by contrast in his blog http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2009/04/review_jpegs_by_thomas_ruff/ is a little more critical in his view. Colberg feels that while the images that are being produced are visually stunning and captivating, the question is the outcome more that just the technique applied.
Personally, when I look at the images I’m am drawn by the effect, rather than the originality of the images; although I believe that they would work better (as implied by both reviewers) in a large formal print display for best effect.
Above is my image from Assignment 1 in Ruffs Style; I don’t think in the case of this image it adds much value.
I can see where Ruff’s idea for the project came from, i.e. playing images after his images of 9/11 failed but as Colberg said are the images more that just the technique? The images to me remind me of the Brillo Pad Boxes and Campbell’s Soup by Andy Warhol – clever visually appealing but to me lacking in depth.