In reply to Artifacts:
Old Nick, on the contrary. I see from your example the source of your disbelief.
The people that were retelling retelling the story were - only - doing just that. Take that same group of people and impose varying stimulants upon each person. I'm pretty sure that I can bet the farm that one of the people - with just the right amount of stimulant(s) - will jolt and exhibit altogether fresh characteristics other than the person before (or the person after for that matter), and express far beyond any verbal communication. For all I know, with the appropriate injection they could grow another digit (so to speak, ahem), :)
As my example - as crude rude as it seems - clearly shows that the 'stimulant imposed' on the original 255-0-0 pure red rectangle was, a) the method of compressing the raster / bitmap information (in that example .jpg), and b) the Quality of such a compression. Therein lies your misinterpretation I'm sure, or why else would you supply such an off-track comparison?
Does art generate life? Sure it does!! Yes indeed art generates life, it just generates artistic life. I don't mean to sound sarcastic, I'm just saying that there is indeed an artistic - linage - just as valid as your own family tree.
So please, now that we have cleared that up, allow me to move on...
It is my belief, and understanding, that Artifacts speak to the very essence of whence they come!!
Artifacts, those funky groovy rebel pixels of graphic information, are indeed - OF - the very Nature of Silicon itself.
Yes, Silicon!! The very substance which constitutes our era of modern computer / life.
Furthermore, Artifacts are the visible rebellious expressions for/of Silicon, (symbol Si as noted in the Periodic Table), and for/of the visible rebellious expressions of ALL the digital elements in general - which shall/allow me to say - constantly keep in touch with their molecular cousins ... Graphite.
n.