Shoshone Falls Hough Transform; Haar

Trevor Paglen, Shoshone Falls Hough Transform; Haar, 2017, silver gelatin print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift in honor of Nion T. McEvoy, Chair of SAAM Commission (2016-2018), made possible by Carolyn Small Alper, Fleur Bresler, Richard and Joanne Brodie, Billings and John Cay, Carolyn and Mo Cunniffe, James F. Dicke II, Elizabeth and James Eisenstein, Tania Evans, Norma Lee and Morton Funger, Shelby and Frederick Gans, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, Joffa and William Kerr, Robert S. & Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, Inc., Maureen and Gene Kim, The Lunder Foundation-Peter and Paula Lunder Family, William and Christine Ragland, Terry and Margaret Stent, Drs. Harold and Myra J. Weiss, Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, and Kelly Williams, 2019.17, ©2017, Trevor Paglen
Copied Trevor Paglen, Shoshone Falls Hough Transform; Haar, 2017, silver gelatin print, 48 × 60 in. (121.9 × 152.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift in honor of Nion T. McEvoy, Chair of SAAM Commission (2016−2018), made possible by Carolyn Small Alper, Fleur Bresler, Richard and Joanne Brodie, Billings and John Cay, Carolyn and Mo Cunniffe, James F. Dicke II, Elizabeth and James Eisenstein, Tania Evans, Norma Lee and Morton Funger, Shelby and Frederick Gans, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, Joffa and William Kerr, Robert S. & Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, Inc., Maureen and Gene Kim, The Lunder Foundation-Peter and Paula Lunder Family, William and Christine Ragland, Terry and Margaret Stent, Drs. Harold and Myra J. Weiss, Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, and Kelly Williams, 2019.17, ©2017, Trevor Paglen

Artwork Details

Title
Shoshone Falls Hough Transform; Haar
Artist
Date
2017
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
48 × 60 in. (121.9 × 152.4 cm)
Copyright
©2017, Trevor Paglen
Credit Line
Gift in honor of Nion T. McEvoy, Chair of SAAM Commission (2016−2018), made possible by Carolyn Small Alper, Fleur Bresler, Richard and Joanne Brodie, Billings and John Cay, Carolyn and Mo Cunniffe, James F. Dicke II, Elizabeth and James Eisenstein, Tania Evans, Norma Lee and Morton Funger, Shelby and Frederick Gans, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, Joffa and William Kerr, Robert S. & Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, Inc., Maureen and Gene Kim, The Lunder Foundation-Peter and Paula Lunder Family, William and Christine Ragland, Terry and Margaret Stent, Drs. Harold and Myra J. Weiss, Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, and Kelly Williams
Mediums Description
silver gelatin print
Classifications
Subjects
  • Landscape — waterfall — Shoshone Falls
Object Number
2019.17
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2019.17

Artwork Description

Paglen photographed the same location---Shoshone Falls---that Timothy O'Sullivan did in 1874. O'Sullivan served as photographer for the Wheeler Survey of territories west of the 100th meridian--- then called a "Reconnaissance of the American West." Paglen's photograph explores today's high-tech reconnaissance by artificial intelligence or machine vision. Shoshone Falls, Hough Transform; Haar is a close-up of the falls, overlaid with strokes and lines indicating what two different computer vision algorithms "see" in it. One artificial intelligence surveyed the image for underlying lines, a technique used in self-driving cars and robotics. Another found shapes in the waterfall that it believed to be faces.