Smerdol is a video filter, ironically inspired by an Instagram function that allows to "pixelare" videos, bringing the function to the extreme limit, ironing on the meaning and objectivity of the term "low quality".
We are in a peculiar period, in which the aesthetic "return" to the early internet is sought by a communicative language and image that was once a result of more limited and limiting tools.
Today the people of social media are approaching these tools: videos shot with old platforms, Nintendo DS, old iPhone where possible. Where there are no suitable tools, filters and tools can "rovinate" or "age" the image. But without knowing the meaning of these words.
Smerdol brings this concept to the most absolute extreme: manipulation of the amount of colors and aliasing pixels to bring a 4K video to an elegant SLQ (super-low-quality) of 180×101 px. The consideration of a 0.02 megapixel camera.
The resulting video however maintains a resolution of 4096 × 2160 pixels (4K): it is the amount of visual information to be drastically reduced, while the size of the individual pixels is increased to fill the original format.
The paradox is the point. Playing with technical ignorance and the way the market has transformed complex metrics like resolution into simple advertising labels. **A video can be technically 4K and, at the same time, be visually almost free of information. * *
