Capture, facial recognising the power

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In keeping with his tradition of scraping of controversial data, in “Capture” Paolo Cirio has used a series of 1,000 photographs shot during the wave of protests in France, to isolate 4,000 policeman through a Facial Recognition algorithm. This database has been further elaborated, personally identifying these officials through a crowdsourcing process. As a result, his work at the Le Fresnoy’s “Panorama 22” exhibition has been censored under pressure from the French Minister of Interior Gerald Darmanin, who publicly reacted, arguing for the protection of policemen. The artist went on, launching a campaign to ban Facial Recognition technology in the whole EU and posting printouts of faces in the street. Cirio adopts an exemplary strategy to turn back to power the invoked ‘technological emergency’, showing the striking contradictions in the logic mechanism.

 

Paolo Cirio – Capture. Profiling Faces of French Police Officers