PXcrypt
- 1 Key sound – Pulsar Gitter (excerpt)
- 2 Key sound – Phasen-Kaskaden (excerpt)
- 3 Tektonik, encrypted with an image (excerpt)
Encryption is part of almost every digital transmission, yet it remains invisible. PXcrypt applies it to images, where each step can be seen and undone.
Every pixel is recalculated through a matrix transformation. The matrix is the key: depending on its values, it changes colours, moves pixels to new positions or shifts the image in waves. One method derives the matrix from an audio file, so the image is encrypted by a sound.
Even where the encrypted image looks like noise, it follows a strict logic. With the same key, the original can be restored exactly, as long as the file remains uncompressed. The compression used almost everywhere online leaves artefacts that make an exact reversal impossible. Normally these artefacts sit below the threshold of perception; the encryption enlarges them until they become part of the picture.
At the 17th brau.ART in Dessau, the installation consists of video loops on a large screen, still images on an old CRT television, framed pigment prints on baryta paper and speakers playing the sounds the images were encrypted with. The prints can no longer be decrypted. The recordings above include two of these key sounds and a soundscape that was itself encrypted with an image.
