Dan N. Tran
(Year 4, NUS School of Computing )Dan N. Tran is a final-year student in the School of Computing. A software developer by day and a writer and image maker by night, he takes a keen interest in the ways that visual cultures could illuminate the blind spots of society. His writings have appeared in platforms such as Art&Market, Singapore International Film Festival, and Matca (Vietnam). In 2021, he exhibited at the Objectifs as a participant of the Shooting Home Youth Awards programme.
Archiving Attention
2023
Digital print on vinyl and Awagami paper
Dimensions variable
Personal Statement
Archiving Attention explores the life of images following the death of their owner, in a time of technology’s increasing involvement with grief and memory safe-keeping. After the passing of a family member, I transferred their archive of family photos to cloud-based storage for protection and easy access. Unlike physical albums, these images remained unseen until I accessed them, while machines routinely performed analyses to detect human subjects using sophisticated pixel-based algorithms.
Is the act of viewing an image any more than content recognition? To draw parallels and enunciate the distinction between detection of photographed subjects by humans and machines, I leveraged a computer vision algorithm based upon the attention mechanism. This technique enables machines to focus on crucial image features when performing visual tasks. By visualising machines’ differentiated attention to the deceased subject as heatmaps and juxtaposing the results with unprocessed images where the subject lies beyond the frame, I seek to provoke thoughts about the operations of remembering and forgetting. Resisting the immutability often ascribed to digital imaging, Archiving Attention opens up ways to mobilise the photo archive for active engagement with bereavement and memories.
Archiving Attention explores the life of images following the death of their owner, in a time of technology’s increasing involvement with grief and memory safe-keeping. After the passing of a family member, I transferred their archive of family photos to cloud-based storage for protection and easy access. Unlike physical albums, these images remained unseen until I accessed them, while machines routinely performed analyses to detect human subjects using sophisticated pixel-based algorithms.
Is the act of viewing an image any more than content recognition? To draw parallels and enunciate the distinction between detection of photographed subjects by humans and machines, I leveraged a computer vision algorithm based upon the attention mechanism. This technique enables machines to focus on crucial image features when performing visual tasks. By visualising machines’ differentiated attention to the deceased subject as heatmaps and juxtaposing the results with unprocessed images where the subject lies beyond the frame, I seek to provoke thoughts about the operations of remembering and forgetting. Resisting the immutability often ascribed to digital imaging, Archiving Attention opens up ways to mobilise the photo archive for active engagement with bereavement and memories.
