ImaginativePRO Blog

CHICAGO ARTIST LEO SELVAGGIO DESIGNS A MASK USING HIS FACE TO FOOL FACE RECOGNITION SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS

ON THE STREET OR ON FACEBOOK, FACIAL RECOGNITION CAMERAS ARE POINTED YOUR WAY NON-STOP. ONE ARTIST WANTS TO LEND YOU HIS FACE TO PROTECT YOURS.

The city of Chicago monitors its citizens through ~25,000 surveillance cameras--what the ACLU has deemed a “frightening number.” These cameras connect to facial recognition software and government databases to reveal your identity. In 2013, Chicago police flexed the muscles of this system for the first time, and used it to identify and arrest a suspected purse snatcher.

Even to law-abiding citizens, that volume of cameras is overkill. In response, Chicago artist Leo Selvaggio has offered his own face to shield people's identities--from everyday pedestrians to active protesters--whether they’re in a public urban space or just shooting selfies for Facebook.

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In an Indiegogo project dubbed URME (phonetically, “you’re me”), Selvaggio offers three ways to buy his face, all sold at cost. The first is as a photorealistic, 3-D printed and hand-painted prosthetic mask. At a glance, it appears real to cameras and people alike.

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A second, “economic” option is a DIY paper mask kit. You can cut out Selvaggio’s visage from a sheet of paper, then stick it on your own face. No one will be fooled, but that’s not really the point. Here, Selvaggio’s face serves more as a Guy Fawkes mask--the mask of choice for hacker collective Anonymous. It’s an overt refusal to be recognized, and a visual icon that's recognized by many protesters. But facial recognition cameras, often working from low-resolution camera feeds, will just ID you (or your throng of people) as Selvaggio himself.

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The third mask doesn’t live in the real world at all. It’s a piece of open-source software that uses augmented reality to stick Selvaggio’s face onto faces in a video feed, shielding you from such platforms as Facebook’s powerful facial recognition. (Ignore the fact that Facebook can probably triangulate who is in your crazy protest video by analyzing the viewing and share patterns of its multi-billion-person social network.)

URME SURVEILLANCE: Indiegogo Campaign from Leo Selvaggio on Vimeo. 

Selvaggio’s masks make a point, even if they're an imperfect solution to an increasingly stifling surveillance infrastructure. In the best-case scenario, his masks become the face of protest across the world. Of course, that teaches our surveillance systems to pay close attention to whomever is obfuscating his or her own face with Selvaggio’s mug.

What would be interesting, and more importantly, scalable, would be if hundreds of thousands of people offered their faces for Selvaggio’s platform, allowing citizens to swap faces at will. It would build so much margin for error into these automated surveillance systems that they could become reasonably useless. But then again, I’m not sure that hopping on the El with someone else’s face each day really feels like freedom.

Support the project here.

COMMENTARY:    As a strong supporter of freedom from surveillance, I'm sold on the URME Anti-Surveillance Mask, as a way to put one over on Big Brother, the NSA, FBI, major airport and local law enforcement agencies everywhere.  We are constantly being watched, photographed and videotaped, and it has completely gotten out of control.   The social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and Google, are all cooperating with both local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security to protect us from terrorists and criminals, but lost in all of this is our individual rights against being watched like we are criminals ourselves.  Our faces are now stored on video tapes and photo images taken wherever we travel or visit. I am glad that Leo Salvaggio thought of a way to curtail these infrigements on our individual freedom.    

Courtesy of an article dated May 8, 2014 appearing in Fast Company Design

VIDEO OF THE THREE BASE JUMPERS WHO JUMPED OFF OF 1 WORLD TRADE CENTER, SURRENDER TO N.Y. POLICE

Last September three daredevils (or crazy people, depending who you ask) jumped off 1 World Trade Center, 1,368 feet up in the air. All three turned themselves into authorities Monday, and this incredible footage of the long leap, shot from a helmet cam, was released for the first time. For those of you with a fear of heights, you might want to skip this one.

 

COMMENTARY:    Wow, that's one hell of a jump, and at night too.  That makes it even more dangerous than jumping during the day.  Makes you wonder how they were able to get into the construction area of the new building, then get up to the room of the building. 

• The trio have been identified as Marco Markovich, Andrew Rossig and James Brady - and their look-out was allegedly Kyle Hartwell
  
• Police believe the thrill-seekers climbed through the same hole in a fence to get to the top of the skyscrapper that a New Jersey teen, Justin Casquej, did last week

Courtesy of an article dated March 24, 2014 appearing in Digg

AS MORE AMERICANS RAISE CONCERNS OVER PRIVACY AND SECRET NSA SURVEILLANCES, STEALTH WEAR BEGINS TO TAKE OFF

The OFF Pocket claims to block all signals so that a cell phone can't be tracked. (Click Image To Enlarge) 

ARTISTS BEHIND A LINE OF ANTI-DRONE STEALTH WEAR ARE OPENING FOR BUSINESS.

Artist Adam Harvey has been working with the idea of anti-surveillance for years, creating, for instance, a handbag that thwarts paparazzi with a flash of its own, a series of portraits that fool face-recognition technologies with blocks of makeup and obtrusive hairstyles, and a line of “stealth wear” designed to camouflage its wearers from drones.

A handbag that thwarts paparazzi with a flash of its own.  When triggered by a flashing camera, the anti-paparazzi clutch sets off a photo-ruining flash of its own. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The anti-drone scarf will be sold with other projects in Harvey's online store. (Click Image To Enlarge)

In a project called 'CV Dazzle,' Harvey used makeup and hairstyles to confuse face-recognition technology. (Click Image To Enlarge)

But only recently did his projects begin to seem as marketable as they are provocative.

His latest invention, a collaboration with performance wear designer Johanna Bloomfield called “OFF pocket,” is an envelope for cell phones that supposedly blocks all cellular, Wi-Fi, and GPS signals. More than 650 Kickstarter backers have contributed $56,447 to see it be manufactured en mass.

 

The project may not have generated as much interest before the NSA’s mass electronic surveillance program was revealed to the public earlier this year.  Harvey says.

“In the first few years after 9-11, talking about privacy was nearly taboo.  Its relevancy was buried in jingoism. Now, privacy is the topic du jour at cafés. Having double identities brings you cache. And a modest amount of paranoia is considered healthy.”

In the wake of OFF Pocket’s success, Harvey is planning to launch an online store called PRCVM (short for “privacy mode”) on December 1. The store will sell the OFF Pocket and other items created for a collaboration with the New Museum store called “the Privacy gift shop.” Some other products from that collection include an “I Love New York” T-shirt that can’t be read by machines ($40), a copper wallet insert that blocks credit cards from RFID scanners ($25), and an anti-Drone scarf ($450).

Harvey says of the camouflage scarf,  "I see it more as a tuxedo--which I don’t wear either, very often--but it’s a piece that could be worn if you ever needed to wear it.  And it’s available." (Click Image To Enlarge)

The anti-drone scarf demonstrates its camouflaging properties that make the wearer virtually invisible to drones (Click Image To Enlarge)

Many of these projects started without commercial intentions. Before developing the OFF Pocket, for instance, Harvey modified a pair of his own pants with a signalproof pocket and wore them around. The interest those privacy pants generated led him to look at the idea from a product design perspective. Other products, like the anti-drone scarf, remain more art than product. That project's website explains.

"Conceptually, these garments align themselves with the rationale behind the traditional hijab and burqa: to act as 'the veil which separates man or the world from God,' replacing God with drone."  

The point of selling the scarf, Harvey says, is partly to raise awareness about privacy issues so that other designers, artists and thinkers can approach them another way.

Harvey's line of anti-drone war masks the wearer's thermal imprint by reflecting heat. (Click Image To Enlarge)

"Conceptually, these garments align themselves with the rationale behind the traditional hijab and burqa: to act as the 'veil which separates man or the world from God,' replacing God with drone," that projects website says. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The anti-drone burqa demonstrates its camouflaging properties which make the wearer virtually invisible to drones. (Click Image To Enlarge) 

One already has--but with a very different philosophy. Called HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp, the company makes a fabric it claims can make soldiers completely invisible.  It is careful to not sell its full-fledged stealth wear to civilians.  Its designer told The Guardian,

"The only people who really don't need to be seen are the ones who are doing something wrong out there."

Harvey, on the other hand, sees his product as a way to explore offsetting military technologies like drones as they inevitably enter everyday life.   He says.  

“I see it more as a tuxedo--which I don’t wear either, very often--but it’s a piece that could be worn if you ever needed to wear it.  And it’s available.”

COMMENTARY:   I totally agree with Adam Harvey that these camouflaging products must not be sold to criminals, jihadists and terrorists.  If you ask me, this is a no-brainer.   These stealth and camouflaging technologies definitely have uses within the U.S. military fighting forces, especially special forces like the U.S. Army Rangers and U.S. Navy Seals, and regular Americans concerned over secret surveillances by our government.  

With celebrities and public figures seeking privacy from the paparazzi PCRVM camouflaging apparel and accessories are going to be very popular.  And with more Americans concerned that the NSA is conducting secret surveillance of U.S. citizens by tracking their cell phones without regard to their civil rights, under the so-called "authority" of the Patriot Act, the OFF Pocket definitely could fill a real need in the marketplace.

It is absolutely incredible that private citizens now find it necessary to fight back against the unobstructed and illegal surveillance activities of their own government.  What kind of country do we live in?  Why is President Obama defending the activities of the NSA?  We are most definitely not "the land of the free" and a country with "liberty and justice for all."     

Courtesy of an article dated September 4, 2013 appearing in Fast Company