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This week, the programs previously broadcast on HD Suisse will be integrated into the regular SF lineup. This will make every detail on our screens appear sharper. Does this also allow us to see the world more clearly, as it really is? Not really. A plea for blurriness from a nearsighted person by Josefa Haas, Director of the Media Institute.
We are investing heavily in technology to make our visual world sharper and sharper. The images are indeed impressive. And what is technically possible, people also want to realize for their own benefit. But does a television world that shows us every pore and every hair also make us happier? Presenters made up with silicone show the artificiality of this supposedly sharp reality. It is only through blurring that our visual world becomes alive and real. Because in reality, we rarely see in sharp focus, and this is to our advantage.
"The trees have leaves," was my comment when I came out of the optician's store with my first pair of glasses and looked at the avenue. What had previously appeared to me as large green patches turned out to be a multitude of individual leaves. As a very short-sighted person, the visual aids opened up a new world for me. Glasses were a blessing and at the same time an impractical and unattractive crutch. I therefore largely lived in two worlds, my naturally blurred one and the artificially sharp one.
My blurred vision shows me a world full of color and light. That's why I occasionally treat myself to a walk where all the outlines get lost in fields of color. A starry sky becomes By Josefa Haas, Head of the Media Institute Aufgespiesst Deputy Editor-in-Chief Andreas Panzeri on satire, real satire and the media. The sixth power 10 Opinion a spectacle with huge circles of light. The pictures by painters for whom blurring is the artistic principle show how enriching the blurred view is. It was a special experience to see the world in museums for the first time as it appears to me without glasses. Studies on the Internet confirm that 48 percent of Impressionist painters were short-sighted, including well-known names such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne and Jacob Abraham Camille Pissaro. Monet deliberately chose not to wear glasses because he did not want to see the world so clearly. In his book "The World Trough Blunted Eyes", British ophthalmologist Patrick Trevor-Roper shows how visual defects influenced his art and convey the beauty of Monet's gardens to us.
The blurred gaze also inspires literature. Ingeborg Bachmann, for example, did not just do without glasses out of vanity. In her novel "Manila", Miranda does not always want to experience the world in full focus. Bachmann describes Rome with her short-sighted gaze and thus paints a vivid picture of the city. In addition to the experience of colors and shapes, there is the intensity of sounds and smells.
Film and photography thrive on the deliberate play with blurring. It is always impressive to be confronted with the density of the reproduced image from the beginnings of the analog era. For the French cineaste Jean Renoir, the demand for a perfect depiction of reality went hand in hand with decadence. Who would want to watch a copy of the forest in a movie theater when we can go for a walk in the original, Renoir said. Supposed realism is flat, but scope for interpretation challenges our senses. It is probably no coincidence that in today's digital cinema world, the big winner at the Oscars is a nostalgic silent film.
HDTVForum Switzerland promises a dramatic gain in picture sharpness, detail, plasticity and color fidelity with the greatest progress since color television was introduced in 1954. High-definition television can indeed have a dramatic effect if we are confronted with something we don't want to see so clearly. If our natural sense of sight mercifully blocks out unattractive blemishes and concentrates on the general impression, the sharp images spare us no wrinkles or drops of sweat. The alternative is retouched images in which naturalness is technically enhanced.
The digitalized world makes us believe in perfection. No more information should be withheld from us, no more data lost, no more traces blurred. This crystal-clear digital world is ultimately artificial, manipulated. The claim that we can use it to reproduce reality is a glorification of digitalization. What is forgotten is that it is ultimately us humans who shape our lives with these tools. Technical brilliance requires intellectual and creative brilliance. That's why we are happy about those who cultivate the drama of blurriness even in the world of digital images.
