Google Rhapsody

Billy Sims / USA

Independent artist

www.billysims.net

In Google Rhapsody, a single, happenstantial image of Chicago architecture serves as the onset for a potentially continuous chain of phantasmagoric imagery. The single image queues a search, providing Google with content which can then be evaluated for relevant subject and pattern to anticipate a user’s needs. After including 30 images from each search, the 30th image is then fed back into the search queue, allowing the process to continue indefinitely.

Using these returned results, the search extends to over 50,000 images from throughout the globe. As Google is a webcrawling technology, its indexing methods can be applied to anything linked on the web. This allows for a diversity exceeding any given method of image production. In reconciling these different fields, the search engine must swim across disciplines of visualization, evincing a semiotic coherence that is as indistinguishable as possible from that of the user.