The Recognition Machine

The Recognition Machine presents itself as a photo booth, but with a difference.

Start by taking your picture in the online photobooth.

Here, the taking of your picture by a digital camera invokes a process of active interrogation as contemporary algorithms attempt to establish links between the pixels just recorded and those of images from a database of 19th century anthropometric photographs – that have been transformed by Antje Van Wichelen via analogue ’procedures’ that include chemical processing of 16mm film and printing techniques. The resulting output links contemporary regimes of surveillance to those of a colonial past. It comes with an invitation to undertake a search. If you have a ticket, scanning the QR-code will lead you to the database. If not, you may click on the pink link under a portrait to the archive mentioned. This search will lead you towards a bigger picture that may depict one or several people who at a certain moment, in certain circumstances, have been photographed – and towards the archive it sits in. It is possible that your discoveries come with a certain shock, a dégout, or a mal-à-l’aise, since the original images have been taken in the unequal, violent, circumstances of colonialism. Moreover, the contextual elements may be unrespectful – unfiltered continuations from colonial times. You are invited to report about your search, historically (with contextual elements you found), personally and emotionally. You may write, add to (new) biographies, upload sound, image or other.

Artists: Antje Van Wichelen (Troubled Archives), Michael Murtaugh (ICV)
Production: nadine, Moussem, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum Cologne, Workspace Brussels,
assistance: Brenda Bikoko, Milena Desse
with the support of Constant vzw, LaboBXL, Peliskan, The City of Cologne, VGC, schepen van Nederlandstalige Aangelegenheden Maite Morren and Gemeente Elsene.
Using the archives of Wereldculturen (NL), Tropisch Instituut (B), Pitt Rivers Museum (GB), Quai Branly (Fr), Rautenstrauch Joest Museum - Kulturen der Welt, Köln (D), SMBerlin (D), KMMA (Afrikamuseum, B).

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