Algorithmic Photography exhibition lecture
· talk
Alex May gave a lecture at BCS in London to mark the launch of his Algorithmic Photography exhibition, tracing the development of the process over eight years.
To launch his Algorithmic Photography exhibition for the Computer Arts Society, Alex May gave a lecture at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in London on 2 April 2024. The talk set out the origins of the process, how it had developed over the previous eight years, and where it might lead next, giving the exhibition a clear public framework at the moment it opened.
The lecture explained how the work records a sequence of time and recomposes it into a single image, making branching paths, swarms, and accumulations of movement visible within one frame. By discussing the method in relation to ants, starlings, people, and architecture, May showed how the series uses computation not as visual effect, but as a way of thinking about duration, perception, and the structures that shape what can be seen.
In that sense, the talk sat directly within May’s wider practice. It made clear how machine vision and algorithmic selection can become tools for asking what is preserved, what is lost, and how technology alters the forms through which experience is recorded and remembered. The accompanying exhibition remained on view at BCS until 31 May 2024 before travelling to Phoenix, Leicester.
Further details about the exhibition were published by the Computer Arts Society.