Reconsidering the Substance of Digital Video from a Sadrian Perspective

The author discusses digitization as video's deficiency; pixels are conceived as isolated fragments without an existential link to the source image. This article explores the ontology of digital video through Mulla Sadrā's (1571–1641) theory of Substantial Motion. Sadrā, a Persian Islamic existentialist, proposed that substance (material/visible and immaterial/invisible) undergoes an internal change, creating intimate connections between the smallest parts and the One, visible and invisible. We can think of these dynamic connections in terms of pixels and frames. From the view of Sadrā's substance, pixels are explored as open to change. The apparent weaknesses of digital materiality become potentials toward understanding its existence in time.