Does the Internet suck? Or do just the parts we get to see suck?
In the new world order of robots and talking heads, a reality exists that’s part life, part cinema, and part algorithm. As algorithmic curators silently curate the social media world, an alternate reality also exists, starring the humans who win at losing the losing social media game — a secret cinematic world, seen only by robots.
What the Robot Saw is a live, continuously-generated, robot film, curated, analyzed and edited using computer vision, neural networks, and contrarian search algorithms. The work of Amy J. Alexander, with additional software development and sound design contributions from Curt Miller, What the Robot Saw highlights some of the least viewed videos on YouTube, featuring first person narratives by people commercial ranking algorithms generally render invisible.
“Amy J Alexander’s What the Robot Saw knows it’s art. It’s deep. It does what good art is supposed to do: it gives you a WTF moment, then sticks to you. It’s eerie. You don’t spend hours with What the Robot Saw. It does what art does in galleries, you pause, you contemplate, and you move on. Viewing art in galleries and museums is like swiping on Tinder. Performed by the machine, watching us, making notations this project chills me. I consider how the bot is watching perhaps the most vulnerable, those who put themselves out on the internet and nobody, but the machine is there.”
Michael Hanson, The Pandemic Twitch, A Love Letter
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/what_the_robot_saw