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When mundane objects such as cords, keys and cloths are fed into a live webcam, a machine-learning algorithm ‘sees’ brilliant colours and images such as seascapes and flowers instead. The London-based, Turkish-born visual artist Memo Akten applies algorithms to the webcam feed as a way to reflect on the technology and, by extension, on ourselves. Each instalment in his Learning to See series features a pre-trained deep-neural network ‘trying to make sense of what it sees, in context of what it’s seen before’. In Gloomy Sunday, the algorithm draws from tens of thousands of images scraped from the Google Arts Project, an extensive collection of super-high-resolution images of notable artworks. Set to the voice of the avant-garde singer Diamanda Galás, the resulting video has unexpected pathos, prompting reflection on how our minds construct images based on prior inputs, and not on precise recreations of the outside world.
Video by Memo Akten
Music: Diamanda Galas – Gloomy Sunday
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History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
video
Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
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Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
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Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
14 minutes
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
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Fairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
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Food and drink
The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner
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Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
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Anthropology
For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business
30 minutes