Eigenface Project

This project is growing from my increasing concern about the use of surveillance technology within society – biometrics; genetics; CCTV & camera network databases using face recognition software; RFID chips; the ‘cashless society’ where all card transactions are recorded, etc, establishing ‘profiles’ that are networked through various government and corporate systems. The potential for loss of privacy, increased identity theft, abuse and misinformation is huge. The incremental and subtle utilization of these tecchnologies and ‘spy’ methods within everyday life should be questioned and challenged much more than it is. These ongoing works are part of this.

Description

“Facial recognition was the source of motivation behind the creation of eigenfaces. For this use, eigenfaces have advantages over other techniques available, such as the system’s speed and efficiency. Using eigenfaces is very fast, and able to functionally operate on lots of faces in very little time. Unfortunately, this type of facial recognition does have a drawback to consider: trouble recognizing faces when they are viewed with different levels of light or angles. For the system to work well, the faces need to be seen from a frontal view under similar lighting.” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenface>