Compressed mystery of Sloot (Decoding deception-Unveiling the illusion of truth)

Presenting a fictional technological breakthrough, highlighting the vulnerability of belief systems when confronted with claims of innovation.

Justice Equality and MisinformationNarrativesIdentity

We invite participants to navigate the thin line between fact and fiction, encouraging critical thinking and introspection.

In a world inundated with information, our beliefs are often shaped by the authority of sources we deem trustworthy, such as museums and social media. This project delves into the pervasive theme of misinformation, exploring how easily people can be misled by the aura of authority and the mysteries that surround technological advancements.

At the heart of our exploration lies the enigmatic figure of Sloot, who, in the mid-90s, claimed to have created a groundbreaking technology – the Sloot Digital Coding System (SDCS). Despite his untimely demise and the absence of published details, the whispers of this revolutionary technology persist, fuelling speculation and intrigue.

In an audacious twist, we present a captivating experiment. What if the SDCS were not a relic of the past but a contemporary creation, unveiled by a participant in this very project? What if the illusion of technological prowess could sway perceptions and lead individuals to believe in the authenticity of this fictional creation?

Xingran Zhuo

Textiles (MA)

Yujia Zhang

Jewellery and Metal (MA)

Fatmire Zeka

Painting (MA)

Yayun Xiao

Sloot digital coding system

The Sloot Digital Coding System was an alleged data sharing technique that its inventor claimed could store a complete digital movie file in 8 kilobytes of data.(For comparison, a very low-quality video file normally requires several million bytes, and a 1080p movie requires about 3 gigabytes (3,000,000,000 bytes) per hour of playing time). In the [Sloot Digital Coding System], it is claimed that no movies are stored, only basic building blocks of movies, such as colours and sounds. So, when a number is presented to the SDCS, it uses the number to fetch colours and sounds, and constructs a movie out of them.

On July 11, 1999, Sloot was found dead, in his garden at his home in Nieuwegein, of an apparent heart attack. He died one day before the deal was to be signed with Pieper. But a key piece of the technology, a compiler stored on a floppy disk, had disappeared and, despite months of searching, was never recovered.

Because no one knows what's going on behind the technology, we're able to fictionalise it by imagining it so that people will believe or speculate on this misinformation.

Compression technique in Sloot digital coding system

Compressed images data in Sloot digital coding system

Archive

Our final presentation is an archive that introduces all the information about Sloot digital coding system. The archive contains all the details of the technology, such as a description of the performance of the compression chip in the Sloot technology, an example of a compressed photo, an analysis of the compressed display and compression ratio of the photo, and a manual for the operation of the compressed image. In addition, the archive contains a model of the chip we made and how our object will look in the museum.

In our finished product, we have placed the final explanation that the technology is, in fact, wrong in the bottom corner of each page of the document. The reason for doing so is also thought-provoking because we have also noticed that people often need to be more careful when reading some documents or artworks and will only skim through them once. We have designed it so that we can see whether people have an in-depth understanding of the technology before believing in it.

We chose to use the archive as the presentation format because of our theme, that is, we want to present our expertise to the greatest extent possible so that it can be made to look like a real technical archive so that people can be convinced so that they can unquestioningly believe in the authenticity of the technology because of its authority and expertise, and then ultimately think twice about it because of their blind trust when they learn that it's all a lie. We want to encourage people to question authority and not accept information unquestioningly, thus promoting the development of critical thinking skills essential to navigating an information-rich society. It also encourages positive changes in society's views and reactions to authority and misinformation.

Compressed mystery of Sloot (Decoding deception-Unveiling the illusion of truth)

Sloot digital coding system

Archive

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Royal College of Art