https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/it-s-time-to-retire-lena-from-computer-science

'It became a popular image for computer scientists to use, despite its poor quality – it was a scan of a photo that included a scanning error. The image was also used despite it being protected by copyright. Permission was never sought from Playboy, and of course, Lena herself, unaware of her popularity among computer scientists, never gave her consent either.'

To explain Lenna's popularity, David C. Munson, editor-in-chief of IEEETransactions on Image Processing, noted that it was a good test image because of its detail, flat regions, shading, and texture. However, he also noted that its popularity was largely because an image of an attractive woman appealed to the males in a male-dominated field.
'Image Processing is male dominated field and it's natural that it's pleasing to see the beautiful face of a girl. Actually, we had a discussion about this in our Computer Vision class and everyone agreed upon this idea.'

Aiming to explore the lack of female representation in STEM subjects and the irony of 'Lenna' as a figure of algorithm processing. Ethically, leading message of women only enabled to enter a male-dominated field through objectification or sexualisation, used for 'pleasure'; bodies valued yet intellectual abilities dismissed.

Interaction of Colour This page is part of the collection 'Part 2: Graphics'.

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