FACIAL WEAPONIZATION SUITE (2011 – present)
The Facial Weaponization Suite develops forms of collective and artistic protest against biometric facial recognition–and the inequalities these technologies propagate–by making masks in community-based workshops that are used for public intervention. One mask, the Fag Face Mask, is a response to scientific studies that link determining sexual orientation through rapid facial recognition. This mask is generated from the biometric facial data of many queer men’s faces, resulting in a mutated, alien facial mask that cannot be read or parsed by biometric facial recognition technologies.
Exhibitions
2013
REVERIE, Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Stranger Comes to Town: Identity and the Avatar, Vector: Game + Art Convergence, videofag, Toronto, ON
Trans Technology: Circuits of Culture, Self, Belonging, curated by Christian Dunbar-Hester and Bryce J. Renninger, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
2012
GL.TC/H 2112, Chicago, IL
The Coming Disturbance, MIX: 25th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, New York, NY
Risky Business, The HTMlles 10: Feminist Festival of Media Arts + Digital Culture, Studio XX, Montreal, Canada
Move In, curated by ONE Archives Gallery & Museum, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA
Queer Video UPLOAD / UNLOAD, curated by David Frantz, INSTALL:WeHo, West Hollywood, CA
2011
Speculative, performance event, curated by Zach Blas and Christopher O’Leary, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Workshops
2013
“The Facial Weaponization Suite: A Mask-Making Workshop,” b.a.n.g. lab and Performative Nanorobotics Lab, University of California San Diego
“The Facial Weaponization Suite: A Mask-Making Workshop,” REVERIE, Reed Arts Week, Reed College, Portland, Oregon
2012
“Faces, Biometrics, and the Aesthetics and Politics of Recognition: A Mask-Making Workshop,” Risky Business, The HTMlles 10: Feminist Festival of Media Arts + Digital Culture, OBORO, Montreal, Canada
Texts
“Queer Darkness,” Depletion Design: A Glossary of Network Ecologies / Theory on Demand 8, ed. Carolin Wiedemann and Soenke Zehle. (Amsterdam: Institute for Network Cultures, 2012)
“Weapons for Queer Escape,” Risky Business, The HTMlles 10: Feminist Festival of Media Arts + Digital Culture, Festival Reader, 2012
“Five Videos: Zach Blas/Queer Technologies’ Escape,” rhizome.org / Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) / Liverpool Biennial, 2012
“Imperceptibly Dirty,” No More Potlucks Issue 23: Dirt, ed. Heather Davis, 2012
Press and Criticism
Daniel Villarreal, “Gay Bombs & Penis Plants: 3 Subversive Queer Artists That’ll Eff Your World,” gay.net, 2013
Lauren Cornell, “Invisibility, or you can’t disappear in America,” Mousse Magazine 35, 2012
Liesbet van Zoonen, Pam Briggs, Aletta Norval, Sandra Wilson, Lilia Gomez Flores, Jasmine Harvey, Elpida Prasopoulo, Lisa Thomas, and Sharon Walker, “Scenarios of Identity Management in the Future,” IMPRINTS: Public Responses to Identity Management Practices & Technologies, 2012
Credits
3D Modeling: The Great Nordic Sword Fights and Sergio Del Castillo Tello
Fabrication: Machine Histories
Photography: Christopher O’Leary
Support: Medialab Prado, The HTMlles, b.a.n.g.lab, Reed College