What will new machine vision technologies like facial recognition, deepfakes and augmented reality mean for us as individuals and as a society? How will these new extensions of human vision change our perception of the world? What will we not see?
 
In this illuminating book, Jill Walker Rettberg draws on art, video games and science fiction as well as real-world examples to explore how machine vision shapes our world. This book provides an accessible overview of the history and contemporary uses of machine vision technologies and uses contemporary critical theory to unpack how technologies like smart surveillance cameras and TikTok filters shape our interactions with technology and each other. By analysing specific fictional and real-world situations involving machine vision technologies, this book shows how technologies can have very different impacts in different cultural settings.
 
The combination of aesthetic analysis with ethnographic and critical media studies approaches makes Machine Vision an engaging and eye-opening read for students and scholars of digital media studies, science and technology studies, visual studies, digital art and science fiction, as well as for readers who want to create or evaluate new machine vision technologies.

Jill Walker Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture at the University of Bergen.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Seeing More: Histories of Augmenting Human Vision

Chapter 2: Seeing Differently: Exploring Nonhuman Vision

Chapter 3: Seeing everything: surveillance and the desire for objectivity and security

Chapter 4: Being seen: The Algorithmic Gaze

Chapter 5: Seeing Less: The Blind Spots of Machine Vision

Conclusion: Hope

Notes

References