Google Images is the largest image search engine on the internet. According to its guiding principles, the search engine should display the most relevant images for searches. Ten years ago, Felix Heyes and Ben West put this to the test.
In their book Google volume 1 (2013), they replaced the 21,110 words and their meanings in the English Pocket Dictionary with the first image that appeared when the word was searched for on Google Images. Some images were obvious, others were comical or downright shocking. The illustrated dictionary highlighted the prejudices and limitations of the search engine, and the relative poverty of the supposedly most relevant results.
Google volume 1 was a testament to the visual culture of its time. However, the internet is constantly changing. Ten years later, the same 21,110 words have once again been run through the search engine. Canadian novelist, visual artist and observer of modern-day culture Douglas Coupland wrote the introduction to Google volume 2 (published November 2024), which comprises some 25.000 images on 1.368 pages to offer a fresh plunge into the chaotic world of today’s Internet.
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