YOUNGBLOOD Award nominee

How does an algorithm enter the subjective world? Where does an algorithm get its knowledge from? How does its ideas take shape?

Algorithms are often regarded as being objective but it turns out they’re as subjective as our own human gut feeling. By introducing an object-detection algorithm in the art world the artist hoped to get a better understanding of how object-detection algorithms see. Normally an object-detection algorithm is capable of seeing things like cats, persons and cars. In this project however, the artist learned such an algorithm to not only recognize objects but to recognize subjective things as ideas, feelings and art. Is an algorithm capable of becoming subjective, if enough data is provided? Will it learn to put things into context just like we do all the time?