Microplastics (2024)

There are few things more intimate than the relationship between ourselves and the organisms who call our bodies home. Similarly, machine learning systems modeled on our own biology represent a deeply human externalization of our perceptual window to the world. Microplastics seeks to explore these networks of intimacy through the lens of curiosity and playfulness. Here, the artists act as translators, facilitating communication between these vastly different, well, “cultures”! To create this little playdate, footage of microorganisms filmed by world-renown Microscopist James Weiss (Journey to the Microcosmos) is provided to a machine-vision model trained only on objects at a human level of perception. The model does its best to make sense of the mysterious world it finds itself in, identifying entities by association in the manner of a child encountering a panoply of unfamiliar objects. The resulting identifications and the model’s confidence in them trigger associated sounds, giving voices to the microscopic chorus.

Find more of James' amazing work here:‬ https://linktr.ee/JamesWeiss