Google Body, 2014

42x70" Colored Pencil on Paper

"Google Body" is the result of attempting to Google the names of various body parts until Google's algorithms auto-filled my search to the name of a famous celebrity or character. For example, typing "hand" auto-completed to "Handel," the last name of Baroque composer George Handel. Once a name was selected, a Google image search provided a portrait to place within the composition in the roughly biologically appropriate location over top of a skinless anatomic model (an image also found via Google image search). Some body part searches were reluctant to produce celebrity names and required a more considered intervention (e.g. the figure's shoulders are a wide-smiling John Denver, selected because of his number one hit "Sunshine on My Shoulders").

This piece looks at the human relationship with information as mediated by technology, at where the algorithms aren't always thorough enough and require a human subjectivity in order to either purposefully function or fail.