Mushon Zer Aviv, Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art (IL)
Abstract: How does a “normal” person look like? The history of photography is full of attempts to use the technology to determine a person’s mental state and deviation from the norm by analysing their photographed image. Physiognomy, the pseudoscience of discovering temperament and character from outward appearance, was emboldened in the 19th Century by the advent of photography, criminology and scientific racism. It was later adopted by the Eugenics movement and then exploited by the Nazis in WW2. In the second half of the 20th Century, these theories and practices lost much of their legitimacy only to forcefully re-emerge in recent years through Machine Learning and face recognition algorithms. It seems like every day we learn of yet another algorithm claiming to analyse a person’s level of intellect, criminality, sexual orientation or other mental otherness by simply analysing their photographed portrait. The Normalizing Machine is an interactive video installation designed to emphasize our active role in passively training these systems of discrimination and the politics of these seemingly opaque neutral machines. The work aims to position these new technological practices in a wider social/scientific historical context. The talk would explore the work’s historical background as well as the creative design process and the contemporary discourse around photography, identity, information design and algorithmic bias.
More at: http://mushon.com/tnm
Short CV: Mushon Zer-Aviv is a designer, an educator and a media activist based in Tel Aviv. His love/hate relationship with data informs his design work, art pieces, activism, research, lectures, workshops & city life. Among Mushon’s collaborations, he is the CO-founder of Shual.com – a foxy design studio; YouAreNotHere.org – a tour of Gaza through the streets of Tel Aviv; Kriegspiel – a computer game version of the Situationist Game of War; the Normalizing Machine – exploring algorithmic prejudice; the AdNauseam extension – clicking ads so you don’t have to; and multiple government transparency and civic participation initiatives with the Public Knowledge Workshop; Mushon also designed the maps for Waze.com and led the design of Localize.city. Mushon is an alumni of Eyebeam – an art and technology center in New York. He teaches digital media as a senior faculty member at Shenkar School of Engineering and Design. Previously he taught new media research at NYU and Open Source design at Parsons the New School of Design and in Bezalel Academy of Art & Design. Read him at Mushon.com and follow him at @mushon.