Designed for exhibitions, “AI Facial Profiling, Levels of Paranoia” is both a profiling machine presented with a performance inspired by security infrastructures.

To create a sense of ambiguity between fiction and reality, we will present the machine as a profiling artifact by using a performer, the artist who will take on the role of a security guard. The scenography aims to accentuate security infrastructure surveillance and security protocol to provoke a sense of constraint to the visitor, who is now a passive player in this profiling system. Seeking to put a normative and safety course at the center of this installation, a security gantry could be placed at the entry point of the space granted to the exhibition of the machine, constituting a compulsory passage for the visitors. 

Because of its interactive dimension, the meaning of the installation can only be understood by visitors if they engage in a one-way trust relationship by letting themselves be photographed. In return, the profiling machine reacts and produces an information sheet with the photograph, which will remain visible for the duration of its classification, but, once stored, will remain inaccessible for the visitor forever.

The experience takes the audience as the starting point for a critical reflection and aims to reveal the status of these AI-powered surveillance technologies and their chilling effects, demystifying the “oracle effect” surrounding these AI systems.