- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Conference Proceedings: found
Art as Data Set, Data Set as Art: Training machine vision systems to see as artists
Abstract
The process of an artist ’speaking’ to an audience by illustrating meaning underlying a body of work on a subject is commonplace within contemporary art. In the age of mechanical reproduction artists can quickly and simply assemble and collate coherent sets of visual materials as a means of non-verbal investigation. In the world of technical images (Flusser 2011) the meaning in a photograph or technically produced image is buried beneath the surface. Artists often assemble bodies of work, as collections of related materials or multiples, sometimes in the style of the visual essay. This allows the artist to illustrate, through type and repetition and focus and observation, that which is important in the pattern of things to an audience. This process assists the audience to see ‘what relates to what’ between items in the body of work in a non-verbal visual, semantic or cognitive way. This collation and relation of pattern, or similarity, of defining an unspoken meaning with exemplar work is also the foundation of how computer vision systems classify and ‘understand’ the world. This classification comes from human ’trainers’ assembling materials as data sets and ascribing meaning to the data sets in an ontological way. In this paper I describe the process of creating a data set for machine learning from a photographic collection. The photographic materials collected as part of a larger artwork. In the text I explain how this dataset is an extension of the artwork and also an artwork in it’s own right. As datasets used for training machine vision systems are commonly centrally generated for commercial/industrial processes I argue that the idea of an artist generated artwork /dataset is the beginning of a process of taking control of the means of surveillance, teaching machine vision systems to see not just how the surveillance capital commercial hegemony sees but how artists see. This creation of artist’s data sets and data sets as art is in itself an intervention as art work. We are proposing an evolution of the arguments originating in the industrial revolution of seizing control of the means of production. Now in the age of the surveillance society and surveillance capitalism artists are proposing ‘Seizing control of the means of surveillance’.
Content
Author and article information
REFERENCES
J. Booth (2004) ‘UK “sleepwalking into Stasi state”’, The Guardian, 16 August. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/aug/16/britishidentity.freedomofinformation.
British Security Industry Association: (2013) The Picture is Not Clear: How many CCTV surveil-lance cameras in the UK. Tech. Rep. 195, British Security Industry Association, Worcester, UK. URL https://www.bsia.co.uk/publications/publications-search-results/195-the-picture-is-not-clear-how-many-cctv-surveillance-cameras-in-the-uk.aspx (retrieved 25 April 2011).
D. Buzzo (2020) ‘Signs of Surveillance’ in “The Arts, Design and Technology” Editors: Rae Earnshaw, Susan Liggett. Springer.
M. Carter (1995) Guerilla Programming of Video Surveillance Equipment. Available at: http://www.notbored.org/gpvse.html (Accessed: 1 July 2019).
A. Dunne and F. Raby (2007) Critical Design FAQ, Dunne and Raby. Available at: http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/bydandr/13/0 (Accessed: 21 March 2017).
Flusser, (1983). V. ‘Towards a philosophy of photography’, English, pp. 1–96.
V. Flusser (2011) Into the Universe of Technical Images. Edited by K. Hayles, M. Poster, and S. Weber. University of Minnesota Press.
G. B. Huanget al. (2007) Labeled Faces in the Wild: A Database for Studying Face Recognition in Unconstrained Environments.
P.Newton Huey, (1969) Ebony, (August 1969).
Lawrence Weiner. (2017) Art Should Fuck Up Your Life: The Zen of Lawrence Weiner. VICE magazine. Available at: https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/art-should-fuck-up-your-life-the-zen-of-lawrence-weiner/58f53c132574666019e2c21b
Nathaniel Ainley (2017) Lawrence Weiner Told Us About F**king Up Your Life With Art, Vice. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjqgkz/lawrence-weiner-fcking-up-your-life-with-art (Accessed: 1 December 2019).
The Surveillance Camera Players (2006) Surveillance Camera Players:10-Year Report. Available at: http://www.notbored.org/10-year-report.html (Accessed: 6 July 2019).
Y. Toister (2014) ‘Why be a photographic image ?’, Philosophy of Photography, 5(2), pp. 161–167.
M. Weaver (2015) ‘UK public must wake up to risks of CCTV, says surveillance commissioner’, The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-surveillance-commissioner-risk-cctv-public-transparent.
W.E.B DuBois. (2013) The Autobiography of W. E.B. DuBois. Diasporic Africa Press.