"[...] this text is to insist that #datasets in #computervision should not be treated as mere collections of #data points or #representations that can be simply compared quantitatively. [...] If the #photos cut the #lab into pieces, to assemble #faces1999 implied a potential stitching of these fragments. [...] There was #cohesion if not #coherence. [...] Faces1999 is not a small version of a contemporary #dataset. A quantitative change reaches out into other dimensions, another space, another coherence, another division of #labour and another #photographic practice. Another #volumetricregime.
[...] It matters because recognising its volumetric regime changes the questions that can be asked to current datasets too. Instead of asking how large they are, how much they have evolved, I may be asking to which volumetric regime they belong (and they help enact in return). Which means a flurry of new questions need to be raised: what are the dataset's passageways? How do they split and stitch? What are its conjunctive surfaces? What is the division of labour that subtends it? How is the photographic apparatus involved in the regularisation of their objects? And what counts as photographic apparatus in this operation?"
https://possiblebodies.constantvzw.org/book/index.php?title=Panoramic_unknowns
#photography #NicolasMalevé #FemkeSnelting #JaraRocha #Hugin