Red Millennial Apple: The Rough and The Smooth Image explores the impact digital space has on our everyday lives and the reasons behind our desire to consume smooth visual content. The aesthetic of the smooth seeks to eradicate any resistance between images and viewers. Within contemporary capitalist production, poor images are no longer blurred due to low resolution; they are smooth from the rational elimination of excess information — looking becomes consuming. If smoothness is post–produced, then this thesis explores the possibility of reversing that process, roughening the communication between the sayable and the visible through post–production, disrupting the algorithmic automation in Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects. Smooth images are progressively roughened to generate collages, objects, rotoscoped video, and stop–motion animation, keeping viewers at a distance but inviting them to linger, contemplating what they see.

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