Research doc.

Forward/Introduction

(tell us about yourself and your practice)

First let me introduce myself, I’m Sanne Schilder a fourth year photography student. Like a novel, I wanted photography to be an extension of myself. Collecting images of time and space where I was tempted to press the shutter. Throughout my study those thoughts soon disappeared completely.

My urgency lies within the image. Ever since I was little, I was fascinated on how the image was a mediator between the world and myself. It was an entrance to make the world imaginable. It did not take long before I wanted to harvest my own images of the world. So in order to collect and appropriate the image, photography was the medium that I grabbed on to. At the beginning I made snapshots for my own satisfaction. But that seemed to disappear partly over time. I missed the craft and the possibilities to explore the material. I experiment with photosensitive films and papers, chemicals and webcams. But I was looking for a different kind of knowledge. Photography, as we all traditionally known, had undergone a transition. The further I came to realize that, the more I wanted to dissociate myself from its tradition. The deluge of images, the saturation, has prompted me to ask if it still makes sense to photograph in his existing framework. Everyone with a camera these days can make pictures without knowing about the complex processes.

So as an image-maker in the digital age I think about new ways of seeing. When the world changes, the image together with it. Today, in the age of smart phones, Google Earth, satellites and CCTV, image practices become all pervasive. The definition of photography expands. Opening new possibilities. Fred Ritchin once remarked: “Photography, as we have known it, is both ending and enlarging, with an evolving medium hidden inside it as in a Trojan horse, camouflaged, for the moment, as if it were nearly identical: its doppelganger, only better.” Without question, the photographic landscape and image-making devices will change and it will play a fundamental role in many basic elements of our lives. The development makes me very curious and that is why I do not abandon mine practice. I haven’t seen anything yet.

Abstract

(in 250 words or less, explain the essence of your research project)

Not only humans perceive the world, as an audience I turned my attention to machine vision. This research offers ways of thinking about photography that may enlarge our skill to explore and perhaps even improve image-making. The developments of the medium has always been closely linked with technological capabilities of a culture. Now we have entered the digital age, something unthinkable has happened. Images become disconnected from human acting and human vision. I attempt to see from their perspective; how do machines perceive the world and can they be a legitimate voice in the discourse of photography? No doubt this innovation will affect visual culture and transform society. Through this project I will explore in what way machine perception can expand the field of photography, open our view of external reality and aesthetic integration.

Central Question

In what way can machine perception expand the field of photography?

Relevance of the Topic

(why is this worth pursuing? explain the urgency of your project)

The contemporary revolution in photography offers opportunities that exceed wildest expectations. The medium is embedded in our everyday life on many different levels: from automated license plate recognition systems, Google Earth, Instagram, drones media to the advent of infinite image storage. It contains many different kind of technologies, imaging devices and practices. The photographic landscape has ultimately transformed society and affect visual culture. “Photography can therefore be described as a technology of life: it not only represents life but also shapes and regulates it–while also documenting or even envisioning its demise.” (Zylinska) To my mind, photography as it was once understood, has going beyond his existing framework and perception. The definition extends to help us see what photography has become. Photographs are no longer positioned as a discrete object, like the traditional way. Billions of images are added daily and this saturation has prompted me to ask if it still makes sense to photograph in his existing framework. Everyone these days has cameras and image-processing software at his or her fingertips. Knowledge of craftsmanship is no longer necessary to produce an image-quality that was only possible with years of practise and training in equipment. I attempt to find a new perspective through exploring this deluge of images; I had to look critically again. The developments are going so far that over the last decade or so, something radical has happened. In this posthumanist world, the human is no longer automatically the subject who sees. The shift has been barley noticed; an invisible landscape of images produced by machines for other machines to see. Trevor Paglen introduced me to “the idea of photography as seeing machines and explore questions such as: How do we see the world with machines? What happens if we think about photography in terms of imaging systems instead of images? How can we think about images made by machines for other machines? What are the implications of a world in which photography is both ubiquitous and, curiously, largely invisible? Paglen proposed a simple definition that has far-reaching consequences: seeing machines.” (Paglen)

“Now objects perceive me,” the painter Paul Klee wrote in his notebook, according to Paul Virilio in The Vision Machine. The French theorist explains that we are on the verge of synthetic vision, the automation of perception – “ a machine that would be capable not only of recognising the contours of shapes, but also of completely interpreting the visual field.” – (Virilio 1994* 1988) Historically, the performances of machines go beyond expectations. In the field of perception, the process in order to sensory information and turn it into concepts, the statement became a reality. Trough deep learning or A.I., computers and devices are able to do some of the things that brains do. Inspired by natural evolution, Artificial Neural Networks use a process that is called evolutionary algorithms to generate a variation of patterns – composed in several layers, unrecognizable to humans. This set of patterns might look absurd to humans but for machine vision they are the most realistic representation of a certain thing. They single out the best “performing” ones: the image that the system classifies with a high percentage of probability. But what came completely unexpectedly is that machine perception has a connected with machine creativity. Can machines turn a concept into something out there in the world? Blaise Agüera y Arcas a software engineer, software architect and designer explains this connection: “I think Michelangelo had a penetrating insight into to this dual relationship between perception and creativity. This is a famous quote of his: "Every block of stone has a statue inside of it, and the job of the sculptor is to discover it." So I think that what Michelangelo was getting at is that we create by perceiving, and that perception itself is an act of imagination and is the stuff of creativity.”(Arcas) If your think from this point of view, that perception and creativity are intimately connected, than any creature is able to create and are by no means uniquely human.

In closing, I think that there is a new frontier and it will challenge the established ways of seeing. The embracing of machine perception will introduce us to a “New Vision”. This double point of view will expand our understanding, just like the invention of photography. I wonder, if photography became this life-shaping medium what will his nearly identical replica achieve? The development of photography has been from his origin a process of increasing awareness of the concept of knowledge and supported our visual capacities if there where inadequate. “Embracing nonhuman vision as both a concept and a mode of being in the world will allow humans to see beyond the humanist limitations of their current philosophies and worldviews, to unsee themselves in their godlike positioning of both everywhere and nowhere, and to become reanchored and reattached again.” (Zylinska 15) As an artist I think it’s very exited to adopt this “New Vision”. As machine intelligence develops, can it be a legitimate voice in the discourse of my practice? In which aspect will it engaging with nature and culture and help humans see and extent our minds. In ways it’s hard to imagine from today’s point of view, but I think this can be a new entrance to make the world imaginable.