In Search by Image, Live (Lena/Fabio), Berlin-based artist Sebastian Schmieg uses Google’s reverse image search engine to unpack the growing narratives around the infamous image of Lena Söderberg. Shot for a Playboy magazine centerfold in 1972, the image later became ubiquitous in its use by computer programmers to test software algorithms.

Sebastian Schmieg examines the ways networked technologies shape online and offline realities, in artworks that range from shredded hard-drives from a Google datacenter to crowd-sourced versions of popular self-help books using Amazon's Kindle. His output encompasses websites, interface performances, algorithmic videos, online interventions, print-on-demand books or neural networks. He focuses on a critical engagement with the manifold and ubiquitous nodes of the Internet – both human and technological – as sites of the political. Previously his work has been exhibited at Transmediale, Berlin, Germany; Art Center Nabi, Seoul, South Korea; Bitforms Gallery, New York, USA; and Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Sebastian Schmieg lives and works in Berlin.

#SebastianSchmieg