Download Finished is an online piece which transforms and re-publishes films from P2P networks and online archives. On Download-finished.com, found footage becomes the rough material for a transformation machine which translates the underlying and hidden data structure of the films onto the surface of the screen. The original images dissolve into pixels, thus making the hidden data structure visible.
On the website users were able to search a film they wanted to use as an input for the transformation machine and to personalise the newly created film by giving it an individual credit line. Through Download Finished, file sharers became authors themselves by re-interpreting their most beloved films.
Download Finished uses this digital data structure specific to file sharing to transform the image layer: what otherwise is known as a compression mistake, becomes an aesthetic in its own right and shows the nature of digital artefacts.
Download Finished questions the relationship between the original, its copy and authorship in a digital environment. It deals with questions arising from the cultural practice of file sharing and the breakages and voids it makes evident within the copyright system. Binary entities - original and copy - become obsolete. If one can find or introduce glitches into opaque systems, one can try to open or even manipulate them and expand and enrich the way images are usually employed. It is this remix culture, sharing and copying not only code but also images and found footage that interests and irritates !Mediengruppe Bitnik.
http://download-finished.com
🕳️ Download Finished How-To (PDF)
🕳️ Download Finished FAQ (PDF)