diederick overbeke

diederick overbeke's 'family of man reversed' project takes all of the images from edward steichen's infamous family of man exhibition that opened at the museum of modern art in 1955 and feeds them through the very contemporary google search by image function, showing us the dissonance between the original images and the top search results.

over the years the family of man exhibition has been widely criticized as a reductionist and universalist american propaganda tool sent out to tour the world by the u.s. government's information agency during the cold war as a symbol of american values. overbeke's project interestingly opens up a potentially parallel critique of google, whose search by image function uses mathematical models based on shapes, lines, proportions, colors and other such elements yet clumsily responds to nuances of the photographs and their meaning--well illustrated by overbeke's image results. see more of 'family of man revisted' here and the rest of diederick's work here.

[all diederick overbeke. from the series family of man revisited. top to bottom photos alternate between original family of man photo and below it the corresponding google search by image result.]

Serfing the Net

An insightful article on the implications of "free" as both ideology and marketing concept by the filmmaker and writer, Astra Taylor.

From Astra Taylor: "...are they talking “free” as in speech or “free” as in beer? “Free” as in liberty or “free” as in markets? Free-spirited creators or freeloading CEOs? For some, the two meanings coalesce in a strange consumerist vision of a communitarian future: Freedom is a world where all the things you could ever want are free — as in gratis — which means you can share them without fear of having less for yourself."

Serfing The Net

[Above: Atiz Innovation's BookDrive Scanner]

Gideon Barnett

work by Gideon Barnett. see more here.

On March 16, 2008 I performed a Google image search for the phrase "the origin of the world." The engine returned 987 results which I subsequently photographed on screen with a large format camera. The resulting images were reproduced in three volumes. The images are presented in the order they were ranked by Google, and are enlarged by 300% over the original thumbnails.

thursday

pascual sisto

work by pascual sisto. see more here. and take a peek at his remake of ed ruscha's thirty four parking lots using google maps here.

[all pascual sisto. top to bottom: remake of ed ruscha's thirty four parking lots using google maps (hollywood bowl 2301 n. highland). projected self (projector, dvd player and table). remake of ed ruscha's thirty four parking lots using google maps (dodgers stadium 100 elysian park ave).]

tara kelton

tara kelton's 'weather shifts.' as she explains, this project "applies current temperature and wind conditions to google satellite images at any zip code input by user. the wind speed determines how far the images are 'blown', and the temperature determines their level of saturation. transforms images of perennially pleasant weather into dynamic reflections of reality. depicted here are zipcodes in texas, arizona, alaska and new york. see more here.

[all tara kelton. weather shifts.]

superior search term • big check

this week's suggested image search term is big check. have fun with the results right here.

[all found via google image search for big check. top to bottom: $425,000 via nps.gov. $500,000 via pennlive.com. $2505 via yaleinrochester.org.]

superior search term • pet costume

i heart photograph is excited to announce the blog's newest column. each week we will present you with one superior search term so that you can get the most from your google image searching. this week's term is pet costume. have fun with the search results right here.

[all found via google image search for pet costume. top to bottom: harem dog via makebelievecostume.com. turtle shark via sittercity.com. princess cat via www.spoilurpets.com.]

superior search term • human pyramid

i heart photograph is excited to announce the blog's newest column. each week we will present you with one superior search term so that you can get the most from uncle google's world-famous image database. this week's term is human pyramid. have fun with the search results right here.

[all found via google image search for human pyramid. top to bottom: members of the ebenezer gym club ca. 1920-1930 via slv.vic.gov.au. clowns without boarders pyramid via cwbsa.org. 11-6-3-2-1 pyramid via mcs.anl.gov.]

archive • obama cakes

not really an archive but in the spirit of the day here are some obama cakes. search for more on flickr or google.

[all found with the search term obama cake.]

archive is a weekly column by asha schechter that appears each wednesday on i heart photograph.

simone niquille

work-in-progress by simone niquille. the images are derived from google search results for politicians and data from their speeches. see more here.

[all simone niquille. top to bottom: woodrow wilson, war message. john f. kennedy, ich bin ein berliner.]

martijn hendriks

martijn hendriks's "attempt to organize google image search results according to strategies of defacement." see more here.

[all martijn hendriks. in the black of this long night. jpg slideshow transfered to dvd. 2008.]

judith baumann

interested in "the idea of translating a text about art back into the images it obliterated," judith baumann's project 'google air guitar' translates all 2,835 words of art critic dave hickey's essay 'air guitar' into a rebus of images culled via google image searches. as she explains about the process: "each word within the essay is represented by one image which is used throughout the print suite. all images were separately collected from the internet between february 26 and april 16, 2004. at that time, each image was the first, second or third result on the google image search option, depending on the first website’s immediate availability." see more here.

[all judith baumann. google air guitar. 2004.]

marisa olson

i've long thought this project by marisa olson was brilliant. "after performing google image searches for headphones, telephones, radios, and similar objects, the images are traced directly off the computer monitor, onto office paper, using a mechanical pencil. the search results indexed highlight the objects we choose to recall, our means of organizing them, and the visual rhetoric of these products' presentation. meanwhile, the computer monitor replaces the camera obscura, overhead projector, and other mechanical devices previously used to assist in drawing." see more of marisa's work here.

[all marisa olson. from the series monitor tracings. 2006.]