COLOUR – photo series
Details
COLOUR is an extensive database with detail photos of human skin. Clothes, jewelry, scars and tattoos play an important role in these images.
The photos are taken on various locations, from amateur football clubs to colleges and from community centers to museums. The database represents diverse skin colours, different ages and cultural backgrounds.
Photos from the project form the basis of the workshop Algorithmic Thinking with Photography that Johan Nieuwenhuize developed in collaboration with the lectorate Philosophy and Professional Practice of The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
Background
This project started with a fascination for the way people experience skin colour through photography. In the popular scientific book The Vision Revolution, Mark Changizi shows how different skin types reflect colours and how all skin types contain almost the same amount of these colours. But if the measurable difference in skin colour is so small, why does the subject have such a polarising effect on our society?
The Vision Revolution on the website of Mark Changizi: https://www.changizi.com/ (1)
Nieuwenhuize started taking detail pictures of people’s skin, quickly enough cultural elements became just as important as the skin in his images.
At the same time AI was and still is developing at a very high pace and has quickly become commonplace.
Often people take AI for granted as something convenient, and as a objective piece of technique. Especially generative AI is endlessly popular with the general public.
Nevertheless AI has many exclusion mechanisms and the outcome can be far from inclusive. What steps in the proces are actually human and can we still influence these steps to use AI for the better?
“How do you label an image of a human being, while being thrown back on your own bias?”
Nieuwenhuize is curious to see how people look at his work, what the photographs bring about.
In essence he wants to activate his public to project their own memories and ideas upon his work.
Photography
For the series, Nieuwenhuize photographs various groups of people from all walks of life. Such as an amateur football club, a startup on De Zuidas or elderly people with a migration background.
The photos are taken very close to the skin, almost at macro level.
The images are taken during photo sessions at various locations. Anyone can participate in these sessions on a voluntary basis. Participants register for the project in advance and give their consent. During the photo sessions, participants choose which part of the skin is photographed and get to see the photos afterwards. Also do they get a digital copy of their own photo.
Even though little information is provided, the images are very intimate. The viewer is forced to rely on theirselves when interpreting the images and is confronted with their own prejudices.
Due to the diversity of the photo project, everyone can recognize themselves in the photos in one way or another.
Nieuwenhuize is curious to see how people look at his work, what the photographs bring about. In essence he wants to activate his public to project their own memories and ideas upon his work. It comes down to the question: How do you label an image of a human being while being thrown back on your own bias?
With his projects The Bubble (2018) and IN TIMES OF CORONA (2021) Nieuwenhuize has been aiming to critically reflect on AI and its filter bubbles.
With COLOUR Nieuwenhuize wants to raise awareness of the exclusion mechanisms and bias of AI.
