ABOUT THIS THING

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A NOTE ON THE PROCESS

A NOTE ON THE ABSENCES

Thanks To:

I’m Google is an ongoing tumblr blog in which batches of images and videos that I cull from the internet are compiled into a long stream-of-consciousness. Both the searching and arranging processes are done manually. The batches move seamlessly from one subject to the next based on similarities in form, composition, color, and theme. This results visually in a colorful grid that slowly changes as the viewer scrolls through it. Images of houses being demolished transition into images of buildings on fire, to forest fires, to billowing smoke, to geysers, to bursting fire hydrants, to fire hoses, to spools of thread. The site is constantly updated week after week, batch by batch, sometimes in bursts, sometimes very slowly.The blog came out of my natural tendency to spend long hours obsessing over Google Image searches, collecting photos I found beautiful and storing them by theme. Often the images that interest me are of industrial or municipal materials or everyday photo snapshots. I do not select images or videos that appear to be intentionally artistic. Happily, the process of researching various themes in this way has lead to unintentionally learning about topics I might never have otherwise, including structural drying, bale feeders, B2P, VAWTs, screw turbines, the cleveland pack, and powder coating.I feel that my experience wandering through Google Image Search and YouTube hunting for obscure information and encountering unexpected results is a very common one. My blog serves as a visual representation of this phenomenon. This ability to endlessly drift from one topic to the next is the inherently fascinating quality that makes the internet so amazing.Just wanted to add a note on how I make this blog, as I have seen people wonder the same couple things frequently.Firstly, lots of people ask if it's a algorithm or something. It's not! Just me searchin google.Secondly, a lot of people assume this blog is therefore made predominantly by using the "visually similar" function on Google Image Search, which is a totally reasonable thing to assume. While I definitely use that function in my attempts to search thoroughly (and love it for it's own beautiful results), surprisingly little of the piece is actually constructed using it. Visually Similar appears to employ an algorithm based mainly on color percentages in an image, and as I'm Google is based more often in conceptual similarities than color-wash similarities, my searching is almost entirely relient on keywords rather than searching by image. Of course, there are times when Visually Similar has helped with a transition or section here or there, but overall, it's not the way I work.I hope you enjoyed my first FAQI suppose I should explain the blocks where stuff isn't.The first variety are the blocks with ⚠ that read "This video has been removed from youtube by its owner for reasons unknown. Please use your imagination here." These blocks used to be video posts, but due to the nature of how Tumblr embeds them they are only visible if the video on youtube is still available. If they get removed or blocked from embedding by their owners their Tumblr embeds break and are replaced on this blog by that alert.The second variety are the more recent kind care of Tumblr's new "Community Guidelines." This is an automatic function employed by Tumblr bots that seem to think photos of hands holding glue are pornographic for some reason. This results in both blocks that read "Something something adult content something something" and posts that have gone missing entirely. I'm working on it, we'll see what happens.Rhizome/Tumblr Art Grant & Andrew Badr – Dina Kelberman