Faces2Voices is an online interactive installation which uses facial recognition technology and AI-synthesized sound to create a generative music composition based on imaginary voices of online visitors. The composition is evolving in time depending on the contributions of people involved. Lots of governments use surveillance technology as a way to control the spread of COVID-19. At the same moment many citizens are ready to give up some privacy for the common good. But how can we define what level of privacy we should give up and how much data do governments really need to respond effectively? We focus on critical approaches to AI technologies and explore these kinds of questions within the procedural rhetoric in Faces2Voices project. People can contribute to the project by granting access to their device’s camera. AI recognises faces, synthesizes imaginary voices and adds them to the live stream.
BY Helena Nikonole Nikita Prudnikov (RU)
Helena Nikonole is a new media artist, independent curator, and educator based in Moscow. Interested in hybrid art, bio-semiotics and AI, she explores the potential possibilities and risks of technology to understand the modern technology- and media-determined world.
Exhibitions and festivals include “Out of the Box” at Ars Electronica 2019, AI Music Festival, “Persisting Realities” in the frame of CTM Festival (Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany), “Open Codes” ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, “The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennial”, «Contagious Algorithms» at Drugo More (Rijeka, Croatia), IAM at GARAGE Museum Moscow and many others.
As a curator, she focuses on critical approaches to technology. This includes the exhibition “Learning Machines” which she co-curated together with artist and curator Alexey Shulgin, as well as a project "Datasets VS Mindsets: Post-Soviet Explorations of the Digital Control Society” (co-curated together with Olga Vad) at Ars Electronica Festival 2020.
Nikita Prudnikov (monekeer) — musician, software architecture expert and DSP enthusiast currently working in the field of applied machine learning in its connection with the sound art. Nikita is an author of the F L A K Y - a generative music framework which he used in live performances on various events including: Ars Electronica Festival 2020, Gamma Festival, Prepared Surroundings and others.
