SIMILAR IMAGES

Freuds couch versus google image search tool
Freuds couch versus google image search tool
Culture of spatial knowledge, Part 1

SIMILAR IMAGES is the first in a trilogy of videos and an ongoing research by Imke Woelk on the topic of creativity. It was screened at the 2016 Istanbul Biennale curated by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley.

The method of free association is a technique of the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud in order to explore the unconscious. It is also popular in non-therapeutical contexts like for example in brainstorming and thereby it is an important part of creativity. The movie shows in contrast the result of a “range of association”, which was generated by means of the a image search tool / google images.

Online since 2001
Indexed images: 10 billion
Search queries: 1 billion per day

The source material for this experiment are 13 photographs. They describe an apartment of Le Corbusier’s housing block “Unité d’habitation” in Berlin from 1958. Organised as a “vertical village” the residential and working units are in a state of permanent transformation until today.