Poor bunny is blasted to smithereens by repeated uploading to the web. (Photo: Pete Ashton/Instagram)

If you upload a photo to Instagram once, the photo is slightly compressed, but it will look great.

If you do it 90 times, though, strange things start to happen.

Artist Pete Ashton set out to see how a regular image is transformed each time he took a screenshot and then uploaded it to Instagram again. The project grabbed the selfie and meme-obsessed’s attention, becoming a hit.

“I’d been noticing for a while - that people share images on Instagram by screenshotting because there isn’t a “retweet”-style button,” Ashton says.

Because the image is re-encoded each time, the cumulative data loss ultimately blasts the photo to smithereens. “Each re-post is in some way unique and also, over many iterations, reveals how the underlying process works,” he says.

Ashton’s project, “I Am Sitting In Stagram” put the site’s algorithms to the test by repeating the process over and over until reaching 90 images.

One of the project’s inspirations, composer Alvin Lucier, has a starring role. (Photo: Pete Ashton)



The end result looks like… well, nothing. Grainy pixels with only the slightest hint of its original shape.

The reason why has to do with how the Instagram - and many websites - processes uploaded images, particularly PNG files created by screenshots. To cut down on file size and maximize speed, the site compresses the image’s data and creates a JPEG file - reducing its clarity.

Multiply that by uploading copy after copy of an image and what you get is a big mess.

Instagram prevents users from easily retrieving photos. So, while there are apps that will help you grab images - and savvy web browser users know how to get at an original digital file - the majority use a simple work-around: screenshots.

The Awl examined how repeated cropping, resizing and reposting destroys an image over time. (Photos: TheAwl)

A story on the massive number of, err, %$#@ memes on the web leant inspiration, and Ashton created his Instagram account to show what he calls “user degradation on a digital file” – in simple terms, it’s your own fault the pictures look so bad (though, to be fair, most don’t realize it).

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The 90 images he uploaded were compiled into a video running at 6 frames a minute, according to Ashton’s website, fitting the 15-second time limit of Instagram. The result ain’t pretty, going from “nice photo!” to “ACK, what is that??”

Here’s what is likely happening, Ashton writes on this website:

Instagram app renders JPEG on iPhone screen.



Screen capture creates PNG from pixel data on screen.

App converts PNG into editable format.

App saves edited (cropped) image in some format (JPEG?) and sends to Instagram server.

Server converts and optimises image into JPEG for transmission across network.

App requests data and renders JPEG on iPhone screen.



Ashton explains, “The key thing here is we move from [the screenshot format] PNG to JPEG which are very different file formats, and that accelerates the degradation. There’s also something happening on Instagram’s servers where I think they add a Sharpen kick alongside optimising for distribution across the network.”

The title comes from composer Alvin Lucier’s best know work, “I Am Sitting in a Room,” in which he he recorded himself speaking, recording the playback repeatedly until it became indecipherable.

One photo, from start to finish. (Photo: Pete Ashton)

Ashton’s Instagram site became an online hit after finding its way into the social-buzz stream. He’s not sure why, as he discovered there have been other, similar projects done in the past, such as Putin Every Day and Regrammer. “I think I just got lucky. I certainly didn’t deliberately engineer it to go viral - it was a silly thing I did one evening when I had a bad cold.”

“That said, I think it touches on something I’m looking to explore more - that we don’t really understand the fundamental structure of the images that dominate our lives. We sort of understood prints and posters, but how images work on screens is still quite esoteric. Anything which unpacks that is inherently fascinating,” he says.

Perhaps in these selfie-fascinated times, people are equally fascinated by what becomes of their photos once they’re out in the wild. Or they just like seeing things go horribly, horribly wrong.

If you’d like to hear more from Ashton about this project, check out this recent talk at the BOM. He has another project, titled “Typologies of Hypernetworked Vernacular Self-Portraiture,” which is, you guessed it, a video study of the selfie itself.

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