“Through the Eyes of Object Detection”

Ulysses Spencer

AI (artificial intelligence) has become connected to the world of mass surveillance to the point where CCTV systems have been “enhanced” with the eye of AI. The box around me is an “object confidence” box, which basically determines what is in the frame. This one simply indicates what direction I am wearing, if I have a bag, my shirt color and my pants color, but the object confidence systems can get quite complex, such as recording facial information, determining what types of objects people are holding and tracking body language.

My intention with this piece is to express my anxiety of being watched constantly in the digital age. My online behavior is tracked and sold and picked apart by systems of mass government surveillance. My image is all over the internet and me as a person is fused with me as an entity online. I am already transhuman. I am also constantly being watched in real life, by CCTV and by the cameras of other’s phones. Now that CCTV has AI integrated. I wanted to communicate this feeling of being watched in all of these ways through a very simple visually striking image, so I chose an image of me staring directly at the viewer, who is viewing from the perspective of an AI surveillance system. The text indicates basic info on me, just my direction, my clothes and an ID number, to track who I am. Through creating an image of me being gazed upon by a cold, technological surveillance network, I hope to communicate my feelings of being watched in real life and through the digital world.

I used acrylic for the paint and for everything except for the text, which I screen printed using water based ink. The box was initially supposed to be screen printed, but the screen broke so I traced the transparency with tape then I painted over the tape, removing it to make a clean line.