What is it?
“Pollination” responds to faces and spoken words.
Its camera recognizes faces and splays them into rotating flower-like shapes; a central microphone listens for speech and shows its transcripts on a multitude of small screens.
In this work, I am analogizing the data that we spread when interacting in life to pollen: millions of invisible particles flowing in all directions with uncontrollable effects.
Nothing is uploaded from the artwork. “Pollination” uses “whisper.cpp,” a neural network (“AI”) speech transcription tool, to transcribe audio entirely within the device. Its facial recognition is powered by OpenCV. This is to say that many small computers are capable of listening to our speech and looking for our faces.
Neither technology is perfect; the same is true of other real-world applications. What happens if a real-time transcript of audio captured in a public place mishears your discussion of a broken ice maker as the name of a terrorist group? Or if a CCTV’s live facial recognition security product misidentifies you?
Press
- Hyperallergic: "The DC Gallery Operating From a Freight Elevator." (November 27, 2023)
- Washington Post: "In the galleries: Exhibit pinpoints toxic effects to our health" (July 21, 2023)
