[ISEA2022] Artists Statement: Estampa — Host images: Parasitology of vision and other symbioses (Imatges hostes: Parasitologia de la visió i altres simbiosis)

Artists Statement

La Capella, June 9-August 28, Artists from Barcelona Producció. Public event.

2022. Multi-channel audiovisual installation.

Host imatges. Parasitology of vision and other symbiosis studies artificial vision and its nature of parasite of images. If until recently images were opaque to data extraction, artificial vision tools break down that resistance and operate today behind any image that circulates in a digital environment. We could say that images have increased its thickness; what a camera captures is no longer just an image but also the starting point of all kind of processes that adhere to it to extract their nourishment. Host imatges show these processes by laminating their operation layer by layer and leaving visible only what they extract.

A series of video recordings of an urban environment have been processed with four artificial neural networks –devoted to different tasks: object recognition, segmentation, pose detection and depth inference– isolating the graphic output of each of them. The installation show these images running in sync. Their sum does not reconstruct the original image but only discrete aspects of it –which elements are considered important and which are not is the basis at the design of these tools–. The set of screens allows us to see each of these processes separately, as a first step to ask ourselves about their operations and uses.

Made within the Immaterial 2021 call of Tabakalera – Medialab (Donostia)
Source: https://tallerestampa.com/en/estampa/host-images/

  • Estampa (Barcelona, Spain) is a group of filmmakers, programmers and researchers who work in the fields of experimental audiovisual and digital environments. Our practice is based on a critical and archeological approach to audiovisual technologies, the possibilities of interactive tools and the resources of experimental animation. https://tallerestampa.com/en