The Seeker

Year
Creator
Country
United Kingdom
Publication Type
Sentiment
Description (in English)

The Seeker is a machine entity – a proto-AI – that travels the world virtually and describes what it sees. The project explores ideas of the emergent machine gaze and the hidden virtual power structures behind it.

The Seeker travels the internet looking through compromised surveillance camera eyes and uses image recognition technology to interpret these visions. Named for Ptah-Seker, the artist/technologist god of the Ancient Egyptians, who created the world by speaking the words to describe it, this project looks at how the act of describing the world might establish a whole new worldview for machines and humans alike.

The Seeker is an exploratory, data-generating system, which the artist uses to create further physical outcomes (artworks). The giant ‘drawing’ “Words That Remake The World” contains all the words and concepts that The Seeker has used to describe what it saw in the tens of thousands of locations it has ‘visited’. The video shows a live machine performance installation where CKRBTs – physical avatars of The Seeker browse and describe the world in real-time. Ars Electronica The Seeker, retrieved February 18, 2020.

Situation machine vision is used in
Notes
I changed the sentiment from helpful to intrusive as the Seeker intrudes spaces by " looking through compromised surveillance camera eyes". I think the artists intention was to create something creepy and intrusive rather than show that surveillance is helpful. The choice of whispering voices naming the labels that the object detection recognizes is according to my interpretation creepy.

Authored by

UUID
121f2944-eed6-45ca-95a7-4b2c58c4f97a