Presence and Erasure
Presence and Erasure is a portrait machine that explores the reality of automated facial recognition and how people relate to their self-image, instinctively and emotionally. Within a given spatial domain, the artwork constantly scans for faces in the vicinity and photographs them. When the artwork’s algorithm detects a certain quality within a photograph, this image is temporarily printed at large scale by exposing a photochromic surface to light impulses. Each automated portrait remains for little more than a minute, before gradually dissolving into blankness. RANDOM INTERNATIONAL began to combine transient mark-making with automated portraiture early on in their practice, in 2008. Presence and Erasure marks the latest development in this body of work and assumes a minimal, industrial aesthetic that references their earliest studies on this theme. The physical impact of facial recognition and machine vision is emphasised by the exposure of the printing process itself, contrasted against the aesthetic of the high resolution portraits generated. RANDOM INTERNATIONAL intend this as a counter to the perception of surveillance footage as always being low quality, aiming to create a deeper reflection on the nature of surveillance today as well as the resounding cognitive and emotional dissonances.

Tech Camouflage: Anti-Facial Recognition.
Model: Kim Jeong Eun
In order to help understand the main discourses covered by the project and to explore various interpretations on the theme of * c-lab 1.0, ‘Beauty, familiar familiarity’, we conducted a “Technology camouflage: anti-facial recognition technology make-up workshop” as a linked program. . Recognizing that facial recognition technology that is widely used with the generalization of smartphones and SNS can also be used as a way to monitor and control individual freedom, as a new form as an alternative to protect personal privacy from such technologies This is a workshop program that has practiced make-up and hairstyle.

surveillance exclusion
Camera’s and other technologies create a safer living environment than ever before. Mega databanks and high resolution cameras stock hundreds of exabytes a year. But who has access to this data? Not only the security department but also the advertisement industry is interested in this technology. They pay to use real time data to their advantage. They create advertisements that call your name, keep records of your personal interests and they follow you everywhere you go. By wearing this mask formed like a lens it possible to become unrecognizable for facial recognition software and because of it’s transparence you will not lose your identity and facial expressions. So it’s still possible to interact with the people around you.

Random String of Emotions

Emotion recognition software analyzes our emotions by deconstructing our facial expressions into temporal segments that produce the expression, called Action Units (AU; developed by Paul Ekman), and breaking them down into percentages of six basic emotions, happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared, and disgusted. In this video the artist uses this decoding system to turn the process around. Here – instead of detecting AUs – a computer is used to generate a random string of AUs. In this way complex and perhaps even nonexisting emotional expressions will be discovered. These randomly formed expressions, played in random order, are then analyzed again by professional emotion recognition software.

Infection Drivers
Infection Drivers (2019) explores the body under attack. In this work, a CGI figure struggles to move and breathe in a translucent suit, which takes her body through transmutations of stereotypically masculine and feminine physiques as it inflates and deflates. In a time of increased public surveillance through facial-recognition software and biometric data  mining, Cooper’s high-definition world invites us to investigate and perhaps find freedom in the technologies often used to constrain us.

Synesthesia Machine
“Synesthesia Machine” is an artificial intelligence with synesthesia, it will emitting corresponding unique scents while perceiving human facial expressions. Through the facial expression recognition algorithm, it can analyze the facial expressions of the audience and output the values ​​of different emotions. At the same time, based on these emotional values, the installation is driven to extract different proportions of scent liquid and atomized and mixed to convert the audience’s facial expression into a unique smell.

AI Facial Profiling, Levels of Paranoia

Aposema:Responsive Facial Prosthesis
In an age of emotion recognition algorithms and augmented realities, our overuse of personal devices and social media, has led to a society where people increasingly choose technological alternatives to meaningful in-person interaction. Our ability to read facial expressions is severely reduced, limiting our capacity to develop relationships and leaving us struggling to empathize.