RASTERFAHNDUNG /SQUARE TRACE is an interactive installation around the issue of mass surveillance and being watched constantly.
For this project I worked with the Axis IP Surveillance Camera which allows me to programmatically control the 'behavior' of the camera. Linked with a Processing sketch the camera scans its surroundings by rotating around its own axis. The whole video - in a live stream projected on a wall close to the camera - is tinted in a dark blue and the environment with its the people is barely recognizable. Through a face recognition library, the camera - once detected a face - will light up the square around it and zoom in to maximum. People who were not even aware of being watched, would unexpectedly see their own faces brightening up and giant-like exposed on the wall.
The installation is designed for spaces where many people are present. A highly frequented public square, a gallery opening, a festival, a fair, or - like in this case - at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Programs (ITP) Spring Show. The camera is mounted on the wall overlooking the main exhibition area - a big open space with many people visiting, crossing, chatting, clustering. The video gets projected as a live stream in a narrow passage, a kind of corridor leading to the neighboring show room. The detected and enlarged faces are exposed on the wall of this corridor, visible to the audience already from far away. For the ones that are projected without even knowing that filmed, to see their own face giant-like on the wall is a moment of surprise and discomfort
The Axis installed at the ITP spring show 2015.