Playing around with dynamic bodies in C4D
I was putzing around some galleries in Chelsea this weekend and stumbled upon Trevor Paglen's A Study of Invisible Images. Paglen's "invisible images" refer to computer vision and how AI sees the world; images we often never see. In a society where training machines and AI to recognize objects and people is becoming so widespread, I think it's important to take a step back and understand how artificial neural networks learn and perceive images. As artists have always been interpreters of images, I find it refreshing to see an artist questioning and interpreting these machine produced images as opposed to developers and researchers. It's great to see it exhibited in a popular gallery, where people who probably don't put much thought into this subject are exposed to thinking more critically about what has now become a norm in our society. My best friend went to the gallery right after me and told me he didn't like the exhibit and it creeped him out. I found that funny. When you're used to seeing images created by people for people, it definitely is unusual and a bit confusing to see images created by machines for machines. I bet a lot of people had a similar, turned off reaction to the exhibit. But it's important to understand that it's probably not the exhibit they're uncomfortable with, but the subject itself. And that, my friends, is the magical world of art! Ripping you out of your comfort zone and sending you down a spiral of questioning everything you've ever known, inciting feelings of paranoia and distrust in the society you're forever trapped in!!!!! But really, hopefully it gets people thinking more about machine vision and surveillance and their prevalent roles in our society.
Some of my favorite pieces from the show:
