Computers Watching Movies shows what a computational system sees when it watches the same films that we do. The work illustrates this vision as a series of temporal sketches, where the sketching process is presented in synchronized time with the audio from the original clip. Viewers are provoked to ask how computer vision differs from their own human vision, and what that difference reveals about our culturally-developed ways of looking. Why do we watch what we watch when we watch it? Will a system without our sense of narrative or historical patterns of vision watch the same things?

Computers Watching Movies was computationally produced using software written by the artist. This software uses computer vision algorithms and artificial intelligence routines to give the system some degree of agency, allowing it to decide what it watches and what it does not. Six well-known clips from popular films are used in the work, enabling many viewers to draw upon their own visual memory of a scene when they watch it. The scenes are from the following movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey, American Beauty, Inception, Taxi Driver, The Matrix, and Annie Hall.

2001: A Space Odyssey

American Beauty

Inception

The Matrix

Taxi Driver

Annie Hall

Exhibitions

The major exhibitions of Computers Watching Movies include:

• AI: Artificial Intelligence, Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, Spain
• AI: More than Human, Afundación, A Coruña, Spain
• AI: More than Human, Guangdong Science Center, Guangzhou, China
• AI: More than Human, World Museum, Liverpool, UK
• AI: More than Human, Groninger Forum, Groningen, Netherlands
• AI: More Than Human, Barbican Centre, London, UK
• Science of the Unseen: Digital Art Perspectives, SIGGRAPH (online)
• Space Sight, Cultural Ctr. of European Space Tech., Vitanje, Slovenia
• Systems Under Liberty (solo), Galerie Charlot, Paris, France
• DATA DRIFT, RIXC, kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, Latvia
• Transitio_MX 06, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City, Mexico
• Iterations as Habitats / Fleff 2015, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY (online)
• International Symposium on Electronic Art, Vancouver, Canada
• Incubarte International Art Festival, MuVIM, Valencia, Spain
• Media Art Futures Festival, Filmoteca Regional, Murcia, Spain
• Kurzfilmfestival UNLIMITED, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
• The Drift, Singel 222, Dordrecht, Netherlands
• Espacioenter, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Canary Islands, Spain
• Pink Screen, the […] space, Mission Gallery, Cardiff, Wales, UK
• Simultan Festival 10: Terms & Conditions, Timisoara, Romania
• Jornadas de Reapropiación, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City
• Outcasting: Fourth Wall, Cardiff, Wales, UK
• Synthetic Zero Event, Bronx Art Space, Bronx, NY
• FILE Festival, FIESP Cultural Center, São Paulo, Brazil
• Blurred Lines, Emily Carr University, Vancouver, Canada
• Screen/Off, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA
• Print Screen, Holon Mediatheque, Tel Aviv, Israel
• Computers Watching Movies, Web-Space, New Zealand (solo) (online)
• Arte Laguna Finalist Exhibition, Telecom Italia Future Centre, Venice, Italy
• COLLISION20, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, Boston, MA
• CologneOFF IX: International Video Art Exhibition, Kédainiai Museum, Lithuania

Awards

For Computers Watching Movies I was awarded First Prize in the VIDA Awards for Art and Artificial Life in 2014, including a cash prize of 12,000 Euros.

Press

Computers Watching Movies has been written about widely. A few examples:

• Wired: This Is What a Computer Sees When It Watches The Matrix
• El País: También los ordenadores miran los clásicos del cine
• FastCoDesign: Watch Computers Watch Famous Movies
• Wired (UK): This is what a computer sees when it watches The Matrix
• Gizmodo: What computers see when they watch movies
• The New Aesthetic: Computers Watching Movies
• The Creators Project: This Is How A Computer Sees Movies
• FlowingData: What a computer sees while watching movies
• CHUD: What Happens When A Computer Watches THE MATRIX?
• Kill Screen: Watch this talented robot do abstract sketches of your favorite movies
• Prosthetic Knowledge: Computers Watching Movies
• Animal NY: This is your computer watching The Matrix

See my blog post on the subject for a full list of press about this project.

Still Frames

Following are the end frames of each individual clip. Click the image to load a full-resolution version.