The researchers captured Instagram’s curatorial decisions by uploading 800 images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access collection to a new Instagram account: @thealgorithmicpedestal. At the time, this account was followed only by one other account (@following_algorithmicpedestal).

Visiting the Home feed of the following account, the researchers saw which images Instagram chose to display from @thealgorithmicpedestal and in which order. No captions, metadata, or social information was provided, such that the algorithmic curation was determined only based on the image itself.

Conversely, artist Fabienne Hess elected to select images that correspond to a concept: loss. Hess believes that loss is a uniquely—and universally—human experience, inescapable in human lives.

Hess’ curatorial process is driven by the human experiences of time, curiosity, and patience; she has spent years physically exploring collections in an embodied fashion, learning about each object’s stories and photographing them during site visits. In this way, Hess’ curation represents both a very human process and a very human selection criteria.

The exhibit received over 500 visitors, who were encouraged to consider the differences between machine curation and a human’s curation.  As an increasing proportion of our visual ecology is mediated by algorithmic platforms (such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc.), The Algorithmic Pedestal provided a space to urgently consider algorithms’ impact on visual society and cultural norms.

This exhibit is part of Laura Herman’s PhD at the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute, supported by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council. This exhibit has been funded by the Oxford-Minderoo AI Challenge Fund.

Researchers:

Dr. Caterina Moruzzi
Dr. Kathryn Eccles
Laura Herman

Contributors:

Fabienne Hess
James Williamson
J/M Gallery
Motong Yang
Oxford Internet Institute
Oxford-Minderoo AI Challenge Fund
Parasite 2.0
Silk Bureau
Weezy Dai

Photos by Parasite 2.0