Reading 01 – The Camera, Transformed by Machine Vision

The relationship between a user and cameras that make choices on their own, changes the task of the user from one who captures to someone who creates the situation for the camera to capture. Machine learning cameras turn photographers to curators or installation artists. Authorship would still lay with the user since without their input there would be no system. Although these cameras can “do” more, the expectations of these cameras would be no different than developing film. A captured situation is still present, yet the type of outcome can not be absolutely guaranteed. Cameras, like Google Clips, or systems, like Pinterest’s Lens, are sifters. They go through information to choose what may be wanted. Taking a hundred photos and choosing a couple manually is the same process. The camera is still a tool unless it can form or embed itself in the situations in which it captures. The tools presented just take a familiar process and put it in an unfamiliar vessel.