Dada. State of the Reference

Webpage. Based on: Man Ray, The Poet, 1938

Visit the work online
In Dada. State of the Reference, !Mediengruppe Bitnik lets Google evaluate Man Ray’s The Poet by inputing the image into its similar images search. What does the machine see in this piece of art? What’s the state of art as it is determined by one of the most influential knowledge gate-keepers in the world? Man Ray’s The Poet is the input for a recursive images search. Unfortunately the image stream immediately leaves the realm of art. Moving directly to the latest mens hairstyles to Bruce Lee and Vietnamese celebrities, perfect smiles, women with headaches, smiling boys, plastic surgery, celebrities with blond hair, hairstyles for women. The recursive loop ends in its 1321st iteration with an image of a Nespresso machine.

!Mediengruppe Bitnik (read – the not mediengruppe bitnik) live and work in Zurich/London. They are contemporary artists working on and with the Internet. Their practice expands from the digital to affect physical spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms.