lecture
Thursday, 9 November 2017, at 20:00h
Filodrammatica (Large Hall), Korzo 28/1, Rijeka
Free Admission
Obstructing the Computer Vision
Open CV Face Detection: Visualized, source: Vimeo (Adam Harvey)
This talk by American artist Adam Harvey will explore new ways of appearing and disappearing in a machine readable world including strategies for blocking face detection and thermal imaging, and tools for advanced visual-metadata analysis.
The talk will be held in English in the large hall of Filodrammatica building (Korzo 28/1, Rijeka), on Thursday, 9 November 2017, at 20:00 h.
Entry is free.
In the framework of AND Fair 2017, the next day, on Friday, 10 November, Harvey will lead a workshop entitled Facial Recognition: Dos and Don’ts in a Machine Readable World. Find out more about the workshop and how to apply here.
Today, using only 1% of one Instagram photo it’s possible to detect a face and extract enough information to profile individuals by inferring their age, race, gender, intelligence, sexuality, emotions, beauty, sociability, body mass index, success as a CEO, criminality and more.
CV Dazzle Look 5, New York Times Commission 2014, source: Vimeo (Adam Harvey)
The use of facial recognition technology for commercial or military purposes is becoming more common and those concerned about protection of privacy, like Harvey, are aiming to develop different methods of exaggeration, overwhelming or camouflage, thus providing a creative resistance to large corporations or governments whose interests have dangerous implications for the personal privacy in the machine readable world.
In 2010, he launched CV Dazzle, a research project about creating a form of camouflage against computer vision, using haircuts and make-up to make a face unrecognizable to most surveillance algorithms.
Adam Harvey is an artist and independent researcher based in Berlin. His work investigates surveillance technologies and explores potential responses and adaptations to a world of increasing mass surveillance. Previous projects include developing camouflage from face detection (CV Dazzle, 2010) fashion to thwart thermal surveillance from military drones (Stealth Wear, 2013), a low-cost WiFi geolocation spoofing device (SkyLift, 2016), and a computer vision fooling scarf (HyperFace, 2017). Harvey is a frequent lecturer on the topics of computer vision, privacy, and surveillance and has presented at TedX, EU Annual Security Symposium, re:publica, German Spy Museum, and the Chaos Computer Club.
