Search Engine Vision “Chair” (2009) is
an single channel video using Search Engine Vision, a visual catalogue program that was designed by Eric Souther. This visual interface is a database of the first one thousand videos ordered within a grid when searching the word “Chair” on YouTube. Using Max/MSP and Jitter, the organized video structure was mapped over a 3D modeled chair. Within this virtual space, the artist maneuvered the 3D model and cameras to capture the live process of searching and sifting through the visual languages of the individual videos.
Search Engine Vision: Chair shows how the users of online communities create visual languages that start to define the object searched. Viewing the wide range of videos tagged with the word “Chair” side by side, the transitive definitions of the objects exist within the moment.