Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon

2019
Participative Recording of the Exhibition Audience.

How are human bodies seen by algorithms? Fascinated by how algorithms are programmed for face analysis and classification, we designed a situation and prompts for an algorithmic embodiment. Participants roleplayed technological processes of facial recognition. Their bodies became silicon transistors—those small parts of computer chips. Acrylic paints symbolised electricity flowing through the brush, recording, and transforming visitors’ faces into images.

  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: a smocked figure at a desk, a green board pins a face recorded in acrylic paints
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: three figures in printed capes reach up, acrylic paints recording a visitor's face
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: two figures in orange-blob capes share brushes, facial recognition roleplayed
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: caped figures stoop over acrylic paints by a wall of coloured prompts, a bust nearby
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: two participants dab blue and green round a collaged face on numbered prompts
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: numbered prompts of pies and hexagons await acrylic paints, one with a collaged face
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: caped participants lift a brush and paint orange acrylic on a green wheeled board
  • Slow Signal — Carbon Performing Silicon: arms flung wide in a cape of orange and purple spheres, a body as silicon transistor