Sorting Song
In her video work, Swiss artist and designer Simone C Niquille shows domestic objects in a kind of perpetual ambiguity: a vase becomes a bowl, a sofa a couch, a chair a toilet. The world is constructed through constant negotiation. Where does the bowl end and the vase begin? These object boundaries may seem trivial, but they are essential for computer vision training datasets that aim to sort objects into manageable categories. With whom does the machine negotiate?
‘Sorting Song’ contains objects from a training dataset from Imperial College London, a large-scale library of 3D models, floor plans and objects, compiled to develop ‘sight’ for future household robots. The difficulties of sorting objects purely by shape become clear when a wheelchair, a toilet and an electric chair all appear to be in the same category. The data is stripped of its context to train robots that will eventually live with humans. The work, disguised as an educational children’s song, aims to go beyond what seems innocent and naive and alert us to a world of coded assumptions.
Made possible by the Pax Art Award 2020. This work will be shown in the Tschumi Pavilion in Groningen as a site-specific installation.
