2023 | Corporeal Data: Reverse Hotlink Composition no. 5

My practice explores the affect of corrupted-agency in digitally mediated experiences, and the paralleling pervasive virtual gaze on my body. I use insidiously ubiquitous technologies as interference, mediating photography of my body and spaces to critically ponder the slippage of agency in algorithmically-curated cyber-spaces. This work uses an AI style transfer of a photograph of my body combined with a deep fried image. The generated output is then filtered through Google’s AI-powered reverse image search algorithm, displaying the categorising virtual gaze. I combine the original output and Google’s results to create a digital composition. I extend the method by transferring the image onto aluminium. The act of printing shifts the data again, as the information is transferred from a digitally printed surface to another one, elements of the image are altered. This process mimics the entropic nature of the infosphere’s data-stream which is epistemologically shifting the nature of a self and consensual reality.

Annabelle McEwen, Corporeal Data: Reversed Hotlink Composition no.5, 2023, image transfer on aluminium, 23.5 x 23.5