This work explores the degradation of an image through a process of repeated scanning. Designed as a linguistic response to critique the treadmill as a technology, the image can be seen as a symbol of “tread” while the process of scanning to the point of illegibility “mills” the image by breaking it down to nothing but a swath of faded ink and printer marks. The picture imagines the belt of a treadmill as the scanner-bed, as if the viewer were peering through a transparent floor at the soles of the walker’s shoes. A collection of fallen leaves completes the composition, suggesting that this belt or pathway is taken out of its typical environment and brought outdoors on an autumn day. Fastened together in a vertical line between the words “tread” at the top and “mill” at the bottom, the nine repetitions including the original scan form a single elongated page that progressively fades in clarity and drapes angelically onto the floor. The intention of this gesture was to evoke a relationship between the scanner’s effect on the loss of visual information within a critical narrative about the treadmill as a device that strips the act of walking from its essence as a creative process.
