Dev HarlanThe Dithering (You Are Here)

The first IPCC Climate Report was published in 1990. It contained many climate predictions that remain accurate, and yet in the 35 years since its publication there has been a tragically inadequate response to the ongoing climate crisis, which author Kim Stanley Robinson described as the “decades of dithering” in the speculative sci-fi novel 2312. This project aims to explore this first IPCC document and related climate science of the 1990s within the context of a desktop operating system from the same time period as a useful framing of the techno-cultural moment in which it was largely ignored.

Dithering also has a specific meaning within computer graphics as an algorithm for reducing color depth of an image while still preserving legibility. The artwork is produced in 1bit color and relies on the well known Atkinson dithering algorithm developed by Apple to produce acceptable 1-bit images on its black and white computer systems of the 1980s. ⁠The Dithering offers a double meaning, first in the context of visual culture where image degradation may communicate the history of an image, and second in the ethical sense in which inaction and squabbling by government, industry and society have produced irreparable harm to the Earth system.