Eigenfaces
ROLE
Programmer, Visual Designer, Textile Maker
SKILLS
Facial Recognition, Python, C++, Data Visualization, Design, Wearable
DATE
May 2017
DESCRIPTION
In the project Eigenfaces, I digitally printed a linen jacket with a pattern of images containing my eigenfaces threshold numbers alongside a 3D image of my face. The project was completed as part of my master’s thesis.
It has been well documented that Facebook’s human facial recognition model can predict the identity of a face with 99 percent accuracy.
In my personal archive of Facebook data that is made available to each user, I discovered that Facebook stores three threshold numbers that correspond to my personal eigenfaces, a set of eigenvectors that are used in the computer vision problem of face recognition.
By taking my private biometric data and literally wearing it on my sleeve, I wanted to encourage Facebook users to think about the degree to which their biometric data is already public.