HyperFace was developed for Hyphen NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism Labs and is a transmedia exploration of women of color and the roles they play in technology, society, and culture, including speculative products, immersive experiences, and neurocognitive research.
Using fashion, cosmetics and the economy of beauty as entry points, the project deals with issues of confidentiality, transparency, identity and perception.
Thus, HyperFace makes the scarf that prevents facial recognition by computers specially made for this purpose.
As I've looked at in an earlier project, you can change the way you appear, but, in camouflage you can think of the figure and the ground relationship. There's also an opportunity to modify the 'ground', the things that appear next to you, around you, and that can also modify the computer vision confidence score.
Harvey's Hyperface project aims to do just that, he says, overloading an algorithm with what it wants, oversaturating an area with faces to divert the gaze of the computer vision algorithm.
Practically the entire Hyperface project involves the printing of models, on textiles or clothing, specially created to mislead facial recognition software.
Hyperface involves certain patterns of prints that can be interpreted by the software as parts of the human face, such as the mouth, eyes and others.
"A lot of other researchers are looking at how to take that very small data and turn it into insights that can be used for marketing," Harvey said. "What all this reminds me of is Francis Galton and eugenics. The real criminal, in these cases, are people who are perpetrating this idea, not the people who are being looked at."
Harvey and Hyphen Labs plan to reveal more about the project this month.
