Chinhwa Ho

When Harun Farocki first claimed the term operational image, they were images that did not depict or represent, entertain or inform but rather track, navigate, activate, oversee, control, visualise, detect and identify. Operational images are instruments that perform tasks and carry out functions as part of an operation.

So no matter how an image is representational, when it is put in the reverse image search engine, it becomes mathematical data that was being read by a machine; it becomes an operational image as well. When importing the image and a descriptive word in the search box, the image became a shape, a container, and the words are used to associate with the most related and clicked links.

I chose a heart shape as the starting point because it is a developed idea to express love which is very representational of itself. By typing a question: The perfect heart shape. The first pop-up image was a tutorial video showing me how to draw a calculative perfect heart shape. I followed the instruction, drew it, and then typed the question: the best love poem. In the first link and the first poem, I chose and diced it into words and used them as descriptions with the perfect heart shape I drew to generate a bunch of results. Aline the visual results at the front and the URL links at the end, I tried to create a poetic outcome demonstrating how the reverse image search engine works. But the aspect of the generated results were mostly related to commercial use is missing and the image flow is a bit confusing since audience might took it as one generated from the previous one.

Without any notification, we passively upload our image to the cloud using the reverse image search engine. For around a week. So-called to make their products and services better. But still, we sacrifice our privacy to a certain level.

Interestingly, there have two steps to get totally different image results. When the google lens is more accurate but also more commercially related, the other function visually similar images are vice versa. We might not be able to know the working module under this algorithm, but the pattern evidence that there has precedence of the outcome, which is primarily related to commercial feeds.

Inspire by the video essay Seed, Image, Ground by Abelardo Gil-Fournier and Jussi Parikka, they fabricate suface by operational images, using the seed bombard videos and commercial images together with military aeroplane scanning video. I took the melting ice cube as the metaphor of the data storage while using the reverse image search engine. Juxtaposing the visual results to create a playful image sequence and leaving the open interpretation about how search engine works with precedence.

Quoting what Matthew said in the tutorial, “When you come up with a statement of something instead of questioning it, it’s easy to become didactic.” Being didactic is not wrong. In contrast, I am trying to do my work in a soft tone because the topic itself is about revealing the potential endangerment of technology, which can be very serious. Still, throwing a found onto people’s faces can be rejected.

The thing I’m doing this term, or should I say from the start of Unit 2, was taking my previous practice — cataloguing, and manifesting it into a more rigorous way of doing it. How can I find the hidden message under the massive source material? To what extent should I use it to recreate, to put my transformation into practice? Using this way of appropriation, what’s the value of the source material? What will be changed or enhanced if I use them and make the change?

Currently, the tool is the search engine Google. The source material was the visual outcomes generated by it. Last term, I found the biases of the search engine, such as gender biases and racism. But instead of stating the biases within the algorithm nowadays, I would rather say there is a limitation, just like the limitation of human recognition.

With the massive source material, how can I use them to create narration and yet reveal the hidden message? The medium I choose is matter. A printed material/publication has a particular format and speed to convey the message, and it can interact with the audience, giving the audience more freedom to engage with it. A film/video can be embedded with sound, and the author primarily controls the speed and narration. What can a publication do and can’t do? What can film do and can’t do? How are they gonna affect the same materials?

After the antithesis, I had some further thoughts about the open interpretation value of visual works. During the synthesis, I experiment with the way to present the narration, trying to use a less didactic and even poetic tone to talk about a relatively serious social issue.

In the last studio work, I present the source materials in different forms which have different focuses in the same perspective. While the image shows the visual similarity of the form, the URL links subtitles show where the source of the images is from. The smallest screen demonstrates the process of transforming the stone into online feeds, giving hints to the audience about how the whole things work.

Regarding the experiment of form, I also need to decide which source material I want to go with.

Journey (n.) could be physical and spiritual. a pic to another pic, it is a journey, The transformation is within and after the journey

A beach stone, as an object, was transformed from something and eventually became something else, like sand. Tourists pick the stone they think is pretty or looks like something as the souvenir of a journey. The semiotic perspective was revealed at this moment. People have their own narratives in a single or multiple objects.

By the image of one stone and a few stones into the reverse image search engine, the transformation begins. By seeing a series of visuals, people would have their own narrative in it. To what extent the format would change the perspective toward images?

1. Putting the first pop-up image back into the reverse image search engine to create a visual loop. Use the little flippable prints for people to see the gradient changes of the sequenced images.

2. Using the same image with different prompts in the google reverse image search engine to generate a visual loop. Here the prompts could have different definitions for the engines.

3. Keeping the method of 2. but putting the personal story into it. Divided words from the paragraph, together with the initial image generate a bunch of results.

This week I tried to research and employed the idea of censorship and cyber geopolitics into the experience. By putting the same image into different reverse image search engines, again and again, create a visual loop. And the results would be quite different depending on which engine.

I use the IP address of different images to create a map, trying to reveal the censorship base on the location. But after the experiment, I found out that the IP address of the website doesn’t hence to where it belongs. The location information of these processes includes where the companies are from, where the data are stored, and where the images are taken. The gradient transform of the visual loops also gives another layer of the message. Together, the whole comprehension becomes difficult to get.

Instead of digging too much about the topic itself, I was giving feedback by keeping the simple fact of it and playing with the form of creative output.

Following the thoughts after the dialogue with the artist, I started to investigate more about the search engine, internet and the unconsciously forced decision. Set the context into 3 parts: 1. Reverse image search VS Image search. 2. Visual literacy. 3. Internet geopolitics.

For the first topic, after investigating the basic theory of reverse image search engines, I made 9 similarly identical images. With the altered text in the right corner of the images, and put them on different platforms from China and the Western world. The text can be sequenced as a sentence, at that point, the expectation of this test is to get different results by using different reverse image search engines that would form varied sentences.

The results didn’t match the expectation, which lead to further research about how the engines work. Different engines have different algorithms which are classified and full of manipulation.

If using one’s portrait to put into the reverse image search, what the results will be? To determine a person accurately is highly related to the exposure, which hence to if that person is “famous” or not – the click-through rate of the webpage that includes that person. More clicks, more data storage.

It’s like playing chess or hide and seek with the algorithm. How individuals situate or vanish themselves in the cyber world.

The second part was I henced the visual literacy of human and machine reading images. How does an engine getting smarter? There is a google crowdsource game for people to play with, the aim for it is to help the algorhithm get smarter. The image resource they got was from flickr. People usually negelect the agreement details while they sign up an account on the website which leads to information leaking.

For the third part, from my shallow understanding, it is the policy instrument to take over the online discourse and governance through leading technology dominance between countries.

– How does it create barriers between varied internet ecosystems?

– How does it affect the searching results?

– How does it affect the communication of individuals?

He-chops-the-steak-to-make-himself-dinner 3.

What’s working:

• More in logic, have rationale this week compared to last week. And the text works well as an explanation and narrative.
• Visually pleasing, the form, the layout, the format, images.

What’s not working:

• Not sure about the four-page layout format.

What’s next?

• Other than the size adjustment of your images, the language is quite similar to your images now and from the website. Maybe try to use a film camera to make your images. (That would be a way of showing the position, the medium of film is important.)
• Experiment with a film camera, change the process of generating and use the photograph
• Try a variety of subjects, more subjects (such as people’s faces).