Ahna Girshick

Machine Seeing Tree, West Berkeley, III

2024

Medium: Archival pigment print, custom software.

Dimensions: 17.75” x 26.5” (framed).

Price: $1800.0 (framed, in edition of 3+1AP)

Description: In my “Machine Seeing Tree” photos I contemplate how machines see the natural environment through overlaying synthetic neurons, reminiscent of bullet holes — constant reminders of the ubiquitous AI-processing of our lives’ pixels. Landscape imagery is the original “training dataset” for human vision and, indirectly, the training input for AIs as they seek to mimic human vision. I overlay a grid of synthetic neurons, alluding to both to a technical process while emphasizing the inseparability between human and artificial worlds. The unique primal pattern of each synthetic neurons has emerged through its training on millions of Internet photos. AI perception scans the world for these visual patterns, a source of both its efficiency and bias.