MATCH OF THE DAY

A computer is collecting television imagery that is sent out into the world from everywhere to everywhere. At random intervals the computer records images from about thirty international satellite television channels.

During the night, Image-Recognition software “looks” at the recorded images. The software compares every image with every other single image stored in the computer, checking 5000 specified characteristics in each image. After 1000.000.000 comparisons, the computer generates a list. Images that share the most characteristics appear in pairs at top of this list. The artist then selects a few pairs of images out of the hundreds of pairs of images, which according to the computer make a good visual match.The computer does not ‘understand’ the images, it just applies pixel statistics. For the human eye visual similarity is something else than pixel statistics. We attach ‘meaning’ to everything we see. This becomes especially evident when similar images appear to have a contrary meaning. The ‘matches’ found by the computer and selected by the artist, trigger sensations of poetry, humor, beauty or disgust. Geert Mul transforms a random collection of images into a collection of contemporary expressions. He is playing with our inability to ‘see’ without interpretation.