IMG_4228 started when, in 2012, I uploaded a video to YouTube straight off my camera without changing the filename. All the recommended videos also had that filename, this data being the only thing they had in common, YouTube having not yet weaponised their recommendation algorithm at this point. The variety intrigued me so I downloaded them all and played them back, recording the desktop as a kind of performance space (inspired by Jon Satrom’s prepared desktops).
(As of 2024 part of the audio in this performance has been silenced by YouTube due to copyright nonsense.)
I next went to Flickr which had a deeper range of un-renamed files and downloaded thousands of IMG_4228.jpg images. I now had a “data set” worthy of some crunching, so I looked at how best to view them.
In sequence at 15 frames per second:
As contact sheets:
As arrays of colour fields using the average colour:
This final effect struck me as particularly pleasing and I used it again for the Instabeck commission.
Before this I tested it out as a mock-proposal (the deadline had passed) for a project called 48 Sheet where artists would take over advertising billboards. I downloaded as many photos from Flickr tagged “sellyoak”, reduced them to pixels and composited them onto the StreetView image of a local hoarding, putting abstractions of Selly Oak back into Selly Oak.
