On Becoming Image

This talk explores how subjects must align with computational images in order to be seen – adapting to definitions inscribed in machine vision software and generative AI datasets. Marco De Mutiis examines the curatorial concept of Becoming Image through vernacular phenomena and artistic practices that reveal imaging’s active role in constructing contemporary society.

If photography, cinema, and television have long shaped social realities through representation, computational imaging systems now build identities and enforce boundaries through their operations. In the shift from optics to software, algorithmic images become unstable and biased foundations – myopic ways of seeing that exclude ambiguity. From simulation data training self-driving cars to machine vision transforming citizens into NPCs, to synthetic datasets shifting ground truths toward abstraction, “becoming image” emerges as a necessary performance to (re)claim agency in a machine-operated world.