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Humans have used technology to expand our limited vision for millennia, from the invention of the stone mirror 8,000 years ago to the latest developments in facial recognition and augmented reality. We imagine that technologies will allow us to see more, to see differently and even to see everything. But each of these new ways of seeing carries its own blind spots.
In this illuminating book, Jill Walker Rettberg examines the long history of machine vision. Providing an overview of the historical and contemporary uses of machine vision, she unpacks how technologies such as smart surveillance cameras and TikTok filters are changing the way we see the world and one another. By analysing fictional and real-world examples, including art, video games and science fiction, the book shows how machine vision can have very different cultural impacts, fostering both sympathy and community as well as anxiety and fear.
Combining ethnographic and critical media studies approaches alongside personal reflections, Machine Vision is an engaging and eye-opening read. It is suitable for students and scholars of digital media studies, science and technology studies, visual studies, digital art and science fiction, as well as for general readers interested in the impact of new technologies on society.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Seeing More: Histories of Augmenting Human Vision
Chapter 2: Seeing Differently: Exploring Nonhuman Vision
Chapter 3: Seeing everything: surveillance and the desire for objectivity and security
Chapter 4: Being seen: The Algorithmic Gaze
Chapter 5: Seeing Less: The Blind Spots of Machine Vision
Conclusion: Hope
Notes
References
About the author
Jill Walker Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture and Co-Director of the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen.
Summary
Humans have used technology to expand our limited vision for millennia, from the invention of the stone mirror 8,000 years ago to the latest developments in facial recognition and augmented reality. We imagine that technologies will allow us to see more, to see differently and even to see everything. But each of these new ways of seeing carries its own blind spots.
In this illuminating book, Jill Walker Rettberg examines the long history of machine vision. Providing an overview of the historical and contemporary uses of machine vision, she unpacks how technologies such as smart surveillance cameras and TikTok filters are changing the way we see the world and one another. By analysing fictional and real-world examples, including art, video games and science fiction, the book shows how machine vision can have very different cultural impacts, fostering both sympathy and community as well as anxiety and fear.
Combining ethnographic and critical media studies approaches alongside personal reflections, Machine Vision is an engaging and eye-opening read. It is suitable for students and scholars of digital media studies, science and technology studies, visual studies, digital art and science fiction, as well as for general readers interested in the impact of new technologies on society.
Report
"If you want to understand how machine vision is woven into our lives, from how we perceive the world to how we see ourselves, start here."
--Kate Crawford, author of Atlas of AI
"This accessibly written book takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the many ways humans have extended their visual perception beyond their embodied capacities. It carefully considers both the promises of machine vision technologies and their more frightening and destructive potential. A refreshing contribution to our understanding of the entangled, evolving relationship between vision and technology."
--Kelly Gates, University of California San Diego
"The nature of the influence exerted by machine vision on society as a whole will be all the more fruitfully considered and discussed with the help of [Rettberg's] book, which is written in clear and accessible language."
--c't, Magazin für Computertechnik
