Trevor Paglen Featured in 25 Important AI Works

BCNM alum Trevor Paglen's piece They Took the Faces from the Accused and the Dead... (SD18) is featured in ARTnews's 25 Essential AI Artworks!

From the article:

The past repeats itself in strange ways, and one need only look to photography for proof. During the 19th century, police studied mug shots of suspected criminals with the aim of finding features common to people who were capable of doing harm. More than a century later, mug shots have been used once more to a similar end: training facial recognition technology to catch criminals, a practice that experts say is racially biased and likely to heighten inequalities in the years to come.

With all that in mind, Paglen created this installation of more than 3,200 mug shots from the archive of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Facial recognition software brings together these photos—presented without identifying information (and with the addition of white bars across each set of eyes)—according to visual similarities, such as race and facial expression. Paglen channels how this form of AI sees these images, which are stripped of context, dehumanizing the very humans they depict.

Read more here!