Artist: Matheus da Rocha Montanari
2020
This work makes algorithmic approximations of geographically distant places. As a result, we create a cartography of a space that emerges from the combination of images selected by Artificial Intelligence.
Today, we see the rise of digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence, invading the most diverse fields. These types of systems have specific ways of operating, mainly on data-based forecasting.
The algorithmic landscape project investigates the dimensions of the city landscape, taking into account the algorithmic layer that constitutes it. The project unfolds in three stages.
The first part is a performance that culminates in an algorithmic walk in two different cities: Paris, France and Caxias do Sul, Brazil. This action produces more than 10,000 images that are used as a data set for the work.
During the Performance, I make an algorithmic dérive guided by a music suggestion system . I walk on the streets listening to the songs that the platform suggests me based on the profile it created upon my data. If the algorithm suggests a song that I like, I turn right in the next street. If the algorithm suggests a song I don’t like, I turn left in the next street. In this way, I make an unusual route and mapping of the city, while I record everything in photos and in the geo-located track of the GPS applications.
The second part consists of the analysis of these images by a machine learning software created specifically for this work. This software does a reverse image search on the data set and finds the most similar locations in the two different cities.
With these selections, we created a collection of images that approach two geographically distant places, from an algorithmic point of view.
After that, the images are printed with a specific technique on acrylic sheets. When the different acrylic sheets meet, they bring out the image of what exists between them, revealing the algorithmic landscape.
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