This article proposes a new method for tracing and examining agency in heterogeneous assemblages, focusing on the role of machine vision technologies in creative works. We introduce the concept of the "machine vision situation" and define it as the moment in which machine vision technologies come into play and make a difference to the course of events. By taking situations as the unit of analysis, we identify moments at which machine vision technologies take part in actions without reducing them to either tools or protagonists, instead allowing for more complex agential entanglements between human and non-human actors. Grounded on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, this article demonstrates how an analytical unit such as the machine vision situation is a valuable method for tracing how agency is distributed. We illustrate this through three examples by applying the method to creative works - narratives, digital games, and artworks - revealing key aspects of distributed agency and calling attention to the excess, complications, and messy entanglements that might otherwise be overlooked in analyses of agential assemblages. The machine vision situation is shown to be a flexible unit of analysis that can be productively incorporated in both quantitative and qualitative studies and applied to other contexts in which human and non-human agencies interact.
Keywords: agency; art; digital humanities; games; machine vision; science fiction.
Machine vision – the ability of machines to “see” and interpret visual information – has advanced significantly in recent years, with applications ranging from self-driving cars to medical diagnosis. However, there is a growing recognition that this technological advancement does not simply power a wide variety of new tools and systems, but also results in new distributions of agency alongside (and, at times, against) human decision-making. Our article explores this idea in depth, examining how machine vision technologies and human beings are represented as agents in works of narrative such as games, art, and fiction. Analysing the representation of machine vision in artistic works reveals how these technologies are experienced and imagined in different contexts. We introduce the framework of “machine vision situations” to analyse the complex and dynamic relationships between humans and machines in both fictional and real-world contexts. A machine vision situation is a moment in which a machine vision technology is seen or represented as making a difference to the course of events. This situation can be analysed by identifying the actors involved and making a list of verbs that describe each of their contributions to the event. This method results in a dataset that can be analysed quantitatively, but it also generates a starting point for a qualitative analysis of distributed agency between human and non-human agents in both fictional and real-world situations.
Copyright: © 2024 Gunderson M et al.