URME Surveillance: Analyzing Viral Face-crime

(Short paper)

Keywords: Surveillance, Subversion, Identity, Performance, FacialRecognition, Data, Power structure, Prejudice, Prosthetic.

This self-reflective art paper examines my position within the ecology of surveillance art focused around facial recognition. URME Surveillance, transforms my identity into a defense technology for the public’s protection against facial recognition software. This project encourages the public to substitute their identity for my own by wearing a 3d printed prosthetic mask made in my likeness. This paper will begin by examining our relationship to surveillance and identity by discussing the surveillance system in Chicago as a case study. I will then discuss the work of Adam Harvey and Zac Blas as two contemporary artists working with identity recognition technologies. I will then use their work as a jumping off point for my own, discussing the strategies that lead me to URME Surveillance including an overview of its successes and failures