What the Robot Saw

Who doesn’t get seen on the internet? 

‘What the Robot Saw’ is a perpetually-generated robot documentary live stream and durational online performance and archive. It’s a Sunday drive through the awkward intersections of performance, surveillance, voyeurism, and robots — in the age of the talking head. The Robot uses contrarian ranking algorithms to curate some of the least attention-grabbing new videos on online media — videos hidden by commercial social media ranking algorithms, which may usually only be seen by robots. 

Using computer vision, neural networks, and other robotic ways of seeing, hearing, and understanding, the Robot constantly generates its film, algorithmically curating, editing, and titling clips.

Front end (graphics and sound): Max/MSP/Jitter.
Back end (clip selection and editing): Python.
More tech info: what-the-robot-saw.com/how

"What the Robot Saw" is a non-commercial project by Amy Alexander
Additional software contributions by Curt Miller