"Classifying is human. Classifying is also what machine vision technologies do. This article analyses the cybernetic loop between human and machine classification by examining artworks that depict instances of bias when machine vision is classifying humans and when humans classify visual datasets for machines. I propose the term ‘indirect reverse operativity’ – a concept built upon Ingrid Hoelzl’s and Remi Marie’s notion of ‘reverse operativity’ – to describe how classifying humans and machine classifiers operate in cybernetic information loops. Indirect reverse operativity is illustrated through two projects I have co-created: the Database of Machine Vision in Art, Games and Narrative and the artwork Suspicious Behavior."
--Linda Kronman, CLASSIFYING HUMANS: THE INDIRECT REVERSE OPERATIVITY OF MACHINE VISION, from Photographies, Volume 16, 2023.