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If You Don't Understand Something, Search for It on YouTube
painted letters on wall
Tyni-Jonk House
Luca Rossi, 2026

The IMG series, initiated by Luca Rossi in 2013, proposes a radical form of artistic ecology. Rather than producing yet another object, another image, another layer of visual and conceptual noise, each work simply opens a gateway to what already exists.

Every painted code functions as the unique entrance to a constantly evolving digital fresco: a contemporary Sistine Chapel composed of countless videos already hidden within YouTube. Unlike traditional artworks, these pieces remain physically unchanged while their content transforms every single day.
In November 2024, an article in The Washington Post described how computer scientists uncovered thousands of "buried" YouTube videos. These videos remain almost invisible because their creators uploaded them without assigning meaningful titles, leaving the original file names as their public identities. The IMG works activate precisely this hidden territory.
Anyone can alter the work simply by uploading a video to YouTube using the artwork's code as its filename. The artwork therefore has no final form: it continuously grows, changes and expands through collective participation.

More importantly, IMG challenges the dictatorship of algorithmic culture. While recommendation systems endlessly reinforce our existing preferences, philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes our condition as the perpetuation of the same—a world where difference disappears and experience becomes increasingly predictable.

Every IMG code instead leads viewers toward unexpected places, forgotten stories and accidental forms of beauty. It interrupts algorithmic certainty with chance, curiosity and discovery. Each encounter becomes a subtle act of resistance against the endless repetition of the familiar.