We live in a world full of images made by machine for machines, from facial recognition technologies to automatic license plate readers and AI image categorisation. What’s more, these new ‘ways of seeing’ are coupled to ways of knowing and foment action in the real world. In this panel, which brings together artistic practice and research, we ask, how is machine vision influencing contemporary visual cultures? What kinds of social differences are produced or reproduced by these imaging systems? How might we begin to understand the technological substrate of standards, codecs, formats, training data sets and algorithms that make up the new seeing machines? And how might artistic practice provide a space for seeing differently?
Discussion between Rosa Menkman, Joanna Zylinska and Dr Rachel O’Dwyer