The Recognition Machine
The Recognition Machine presents itself as a Photomaton, but with a difference. Here, the taking of your picture by a digital camera invokes a process of active interrogation as contemporary algorithms attempt to establish links between the pixels just recorded and those of images from a database of 19th century anthropometric photographs – that have been transformed by Antje Van Wichelen via analogue ’procedures’ that include chemical processing of 16mm film and printing techniques. The resulting print output links contemporary regimes of surveillance to those of a colonial past. You may keep the print, but it comes with an assignment (or invitation) to undertake a search. This search will lead you towards a photograph that may depict one or several people who at a certain moment, in certain circumstances, have been photographed – and towards the archive it sits in. It is possible that your discoveries come with a certain shock, a dégout, or a mal-à-l’aise, since the original images have been taken in the unequal, violent, circumstances of colonialism. The assignment ends when you report about your search, both historically (with contextual elements you found) and personally/emotionally. Directions or clues of where to begin are given to you by the machine, together with the printed image.