I'm Google, 2011 - ongoing
http://dinakelberman.tumblr.com
Found images and videos manually arranged
[Blog embedded below]
I’m Google is an ongoing tumblr blog in which batches of images and videos
that I cull from the internet are compiled into a long stream-of-consciousness. The batches move
seamlessly from one subject to the next based on similarities in form, composition, color, and theme.
This results visually in a colorful grid that slowly changes as the viewer scrolls through it.
Images of houses being demolished transition into images of buildings on fire, to forest fires,
to billowing smoke, to geysers, to bursting fire hydrants, to fire hoses, to spools of thread.
The site is constantly updated week after week, batch by batch, sometimes in bursts, sometimes very slowly.
The blog came out of my natural tendency to spend long hours obsessing over Google
Image searches, collecting photos I found beautiful and storing them by theme. Often the images
that interest me are of industrial or municipal materials or everyday photo snapshots. I do not
select images or videos that appear to be intentionally artistic. Happily, the process of
researching various themes in this way has lead to unintentionally learning about topics I might
never have otherwise, including structural drying, bale feeders, B2P, VAWTs, screw turbines, the
cleveland pack, and powder coating.
I feel that my experience wandering through
Google Image Search and YouTube hunting for obscure information and encountering unexpected
results is a very common one. My blog serves as a visual representation of this phenomenon. This
ability to endlessly drift from one topic to the next is the inherently fascinating quality that
makes the internet so amazing.
A NOTE ON THE PROCESS
Just wanted to add a note on how I make this blog, as I have seen people wonder the same
couple things frequently.
Firstly, lots of people ask if it's an algorithm or something. It's not! Just me searchin google.
Secondly, a lot of people assume this blog is therefore made predominantly by using the "visually similar"
function on Google Image Search, which is a totally reasonable thing to assume.
While I definitely employ that function in my attempts to search thoroughly (and love it for it's own beautiful results), surprisingly
little of the piece is actually constructed using it! Visually Similar appears to employ a logarithm based mainly on color percentages
in an image, and as I'm Google is based more often in conceptual similarities than color-wash similarities, my searching
is almost entirely relient on keywords rather than searching by image. Of course, there are times when Visually Similar has
helped with a transition or section here or there, but overall, it's not the way I work.
I hope you enjoyed my first FAQ