Meet “Portrait of Sofia Imber”, an image of a living Venezuelan philanthropist, journalist, and promoter of the arts produced by Carlo Zanni. A 32 pixel by 32 pixel desktop icon that can be dragged around the browser, the pixels of the portrait are made of randomly generated Google images. The portrait refreshes every 15 seconds with a new collection of random images making up the portrait. Don’t believe it? Zoom in on the browser and the thin lines that appeared black are actually a series of red, green, blue, yellow, etc dots. Click on one, and a pop-up window with show you what Google image that corresponds to. See the project in action here, and consider the elements and potential of portraiture in the digital age.

The Portrait of Sofia Imber (2003-ongoing)

Apr 04 2011

  1. This is classic net art. Already the intentional use of pixelation and pop-up windows references certain tropes and styles of early new media art, like jodi.org.

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