Technologies for Seductive Criticism proposes an aesthetically driven methodology for analysing platform media, developed by Gabriel A. Maher and programmed by Jayson Haebich. Working with scraped content from DazedDigital.com (2014–2017), the project algorithmically removes image backgrounds to isolate bodies and quantifies accompanying text to analyse linguistic emphasis and repetition. Through automated montage and linguistic extraction, bodies are reorganised into categories of posture, gesture, proximity, and scale, revealing how identity is positioned within digital culture.
The project was developed in dialogue with cultural critic Jefferson Hack and activated in collaboration with Dazed Media, London.
Credits
Gabriel A. Maher (Concept | Design | Methodology)
Jayson Haebich (Programming | Software Development)
Michele Vescio (Sound Design)
Dazed Media (Content Collaboration)
Materials / Format
WebGL environment
Scraped editorial archive (2014–2017)
Algorithmic montage
Support
Supported by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie (NL)
Automated body extraction using HSV colour-space thresholding (Haebich, 2016), demonstrating the classificatory logic embedded within computational image processing.
WebGL interface | Immersive Text Space
Performances for Technologies for Seductive Criticism compose a text/image/soundscape and deliver research (digital archives) through the tools of the DJ. Text fragments from the digital archive are fabricated into an absurd script. This script is activated through hybrid readings; spoken word, concrete poetry. The performative outcome combines mechanisms of multi-media performance lecture and technology. The technology acts as a catalyst to understand the development of body-techniques within the digital archive (and digital media platforms).
Figure
WebGL interface displaying deconstructed editorial bodies sorted by posture and proximity.
WebGL interface | “Arts & Culture” Timeline