BIOMETRIC MIRROR
LUCY MCRAE, NIELS WOUTERS & NICK SMITH (Australia)
How perfect are algorithms? Do you trust them to make judgements about your appearance?
Algorithms that claim to accurately analyse your face, are increasingly being used by governments and corporations to make decisions, identify patterns and predict outcomes. Whilst targeted advertising and personalised recommendations systems might improve your life, systems that claim to identify a person’s sexuality, or ethnicity raise urgent ethical questions. Biometric Mirror is a research based Sci Fi installation that questions the accuracy and assumptions of facial recognition algorithms. Participants will enter a futuristic Sci Fi beauty salon and have an AI scan their biometric data and reveal a mathematically ‘perfect’ version of their own face based on the ideals of the Marquardt mask, developed by a Hollywood plastic surgery. Whose version of perfection is it?
Lucy McRae is a sci-fi artist, film director, TED Fellow and body architect, placing the human body in complex, futuristic scenarios that confound the boundaries between the natural and artificial. Lucy’s award-winning science fiction artworks have been developed in collaboration with leading institutes including NASA, MIT and Ars Electronica. Her work has been exhibited at the London Science Museum, Centre Pompidou and the Venice Biennale.
Dr Niels Wouters and Nick Smith are research scientists at The Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces (SocialNUI) at The University of Melbourne. SocialNUI is a place of collaborative research for creating and understanding innovative Natural User Interfaces that facilitate human communication, collaboration and social interaction.