The Politicization of Faces: Remaining Faceless in the Mass Surveillance Era
Going through airport security, artist Zach Blas steps into the full body scanner with feet at a hip width distance, arms held high above his head. As his body is scanned, he considers the vulnerability of his physical stance, questions the methods of the machine and thinks of those who are not afforded the luxury of continuing their journey without intrusion. Facial recognition technology and biometric data collection have been inserted into our daily lives, often in instances completely unbeknownst to the surveyed. We’ve willfully traded convenience for fingerprints. Our phones track our every move, while our favorite tools and apps store our faces and those of our loved ones. Corporations can now successfully predict our behavior, political leanings and even major life decisions — like changing careers or building a family — before we’ve consciously made the decision ourselves. Our environments have become equipped to survey us and offer tailored versions based on who the algorithms think we are.
Bad data, biased algorithms and the weaponization of faces and gender was a common theme in the lectures at this year’s Sonic Acts Festival. Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, who spoke on the “Unbinding Mediatisation” panel, pointed to historical and present day examples of the fetishized covering and revealing of women’s bodies…
