Methodological Reflections on Ways of Seeing

The computer as a creative medium has largely influenced how we make, use, and share images. This study investigates how similarly or distinctively human designers and the computers see (i.e., process visual information from the activity of seeing) in creative practice. Based on the review of the perspectives relevant to seeing (e.g., visual experience, visual creativity, visual computing), we practiced a visual inquiry by marking how we see photographic images in comparison to what computer vision processes from the same images. Taking a researcher-introspective approach, two authors reflectively analyzed the processes and outcomes of the inquiry. The findings revealed that during the creative practice, the activity of seeing is a meaning-making process that is guided, shifted, and diffracted through visual conversations between visible and invisible qualities suggested by compositional rules and computer vision. We discuss potentials of computational visual intelligence as creative agents and conclude with methodological and practical implications.