Three members of the anti-surveillance collective "The Dazzle Club" -
© The Dazzle Club - photo: Cocoa Laney
A collective of British anti-surveillance artists is campaigning for the adoption of asymmetrical makeup, according to our partner L'ADN.
According to the Dazzle Club, this is an effective and legal trick against biometric facial recognition devices.
Three of its founders - Emily, Georgina and Anna - explain their approach.
August 2019. The district of King's Cross in London plans to deploy a surveillance camera system using facial recognition without consulting residents.
Masks are not yet part of their daily lives, but the artist collective The Dazzle Club wonders: “can we still be free in public space?
"
Dressed in mysteriously graphic make-up, Emily Roderick, Georgina Rowlands, Anna Hart and Evie Price then begin to walk, in silence, in the streets of the capital.
Behind the artistic performance hides a real camouflage technique,
CV Dazzle
, developed in 2010 by researcher Adam Harvey.
The goal ?
Protect our faces from facial recognition algorithms.
Georgina of the Dazzle Club collective wearing anti-facial makeup in London © TheDazzleClub (via DNA)
Counter mass surveillance with makeup
"By applying this make-up, we make the surveillance technologies visible," explain Emily and Georgina, who have been working in pairs on the subject for several years and organize walks, each month, with their collective.
Before, our work was more abstract, more artistic, but as these devices were deployed in the public space, it became important to implement means to protect themselves from them.
"
And what better than a camouflage technique initially developed by the army to guard against it?
During World War II, navies developed "Dazzle", a type of camouflage that used cubic-inspired patterns to blur the shapes, size and orientation of warships, the famous battleships.
By transposing this principle to make-up, but also to hairstyles, we can thus break the continuity of a face and deceive certain surveillance systems.
A man wearing make-up during a collective walk © Megan Jacob (via L'ADN)
“Before walking, we always apply this makeup in the street, in the eyes of everyone and cameras, explains Anna, who has been practicing the art of silent walking for more than 15 years.
It's important because it's a public performance, like CV Dazzle: the technique is open-source, anyone can use it!
"
To each his own camouflage makeup
Red, blue, black, of all colors and more or less asymmetrical, each makeup is different, unique.
“Facial recognition targets the main features of your face, the light and shadow areas of your physiognomy,” explains Emily.
We work with and against that.
CV Dazzle is a kind of reverse contouring if you prefer, we work against attributes that we would normally highlight with standard makeup.
"
Our “Militantism” file
The practice is extremely fun, creative and of course, each has its own artistic references.
“Evie loves Mondrian and abstract art.
She opts for very graphic make-up, comments Georgina.
For my part, I am more attracted by glam-rock make-up, the stars ... As for Emily, she has a more fluid style, chooses more curved shapes.
Some use tape, string, different materials… Each style becomes systematic, but in the end, there are no rules.
You do what you want !
"
A new echo during the pandemic
For Anna, the question of surveillance has found a new sounding board during the pandemic, especially since the surgical masks which "protected" us yesterday are no longer as effective.
With the generalization of the wearing of a mask, facial recognition systems have indeed been perfected with new algorithms.
In Europe, there are many cities that are experimenting with the implementation of surveillance technologies.
Fortunately, citizen initiatives are blocking the way.
This is the case of the Reclaim Your Face collective, whose objective is to have “biometric mass surveillance” banned in the European Union.
On January 7, the European Commission recognized the action of the collective as a “European citizens' initiative” (ECI), a means of calling on the European Commission to legislate on the subject.
Our "Surveillance" file
Emily, Georgina and Anna, on the other hand, continued to campaign during the pandemic, but made efforts to comply with the restrictions.
They wonder.
“In 10 years, if the surveillance system is much more efficient, will we all have to wear makeup?
Is this the future?
They don't have the answer, but will continue to walk.
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The original article was written by Margaux Dussert and published on the L'ADN website.
Art
Instagram
Facial recognition
London
Video surveillance
Activism
Society