Diagrams, clichés, and algorithms: examining machinic vision from the non-representational perspective of Gilles Deleuze

Abstract

This article examines Felipe Rivas San Martin’s piece El sueño neoliberal (2015) through the prism of Gilles Deleuze notion of the diagram. Rivas San Martin´s piece subjects the well-known photograph of the bombing of La Moneda on September 11^th 1973 to Google’s Deep Dream algorithm. By examining this operation through the prism of the notion of the diagram, we can make the relations of forces in both images visible. This allows for a better understanding of how this algorithm is interpreting the original image. This article offers two main hypotheses. First, it suggests that the stain/stroke system that Deleuze uses to define the diagram is a key to visualize the main interpretative forces at stake in this work. Second, this article suggests that the algorithm offers a twofold movement: on the one hand in frees the original images from its historical “clichés”, while, on the other, in reinstates new forms of clichés that are contained in the training datasets.