The Encyclopedia Of the Now

Watching the World is an interdisciplinary art and photography project, an AI and big data experiment, an exhibition, research, and an online project—and uses open data sources for this purpose. It photographs the world in real time around the clock and across the globe using publicly accessible network cameras.

The captured images are presented simultaneously on a website and can be experienced in different modes. With the help of artificial intelligence, a new form of seeing is 

created—a new kind of photography. “Watching The World” can be understood as a gigantic digital camera that allows the viewer to curate and individually use the simultaneous views of the world. The incessant stream of images can be structured and organized in real time according to various content-related or formal criteria—a dynamic, visual experience. 

The network cameras look at both the public and the private. The fact that different cultures attach different importance to the value of privacy is just one aspect of this. What can be seen in the images determines the world and is simultaneously in the eye of the beholder. This can be provocative.