Schlagwort-Archive: identification

Gay Composite Portraits?

Gay Composite Portraits? American Scientists Develop Algorithms That Trace Homosexuality in the Face (Raul Gschrey)

Composite screening is back again… For a study conducted at Stanford University, USA, two scientists, Michal Kosinski and Yilun Wang, have developed an algorithm that aims to detect the sexual orientation of individuals in their facial appearance. The scientists draw on pictures from a dating website and claim that their big-data experiment reveals the homosexual orientation of men with a certainty of 81%, that of women with 74% by means of their special facial recognition and matching software. The deep neural networks (DNN) adopted by artificial intelligence (AI) would excel at recognizing patterns in large unstructured data in order to make predictions. The results of the AI, they argue, were more reliable than the human brain and revealed the limits of human perception. The authors conclude that sexual orientation might be pre-natal (probably inherited) and that this inner disposition is shown in the outer facial appearance. Here we are back again in Francis Galton’s world: In a revived version of prejudice-entrenched nineteenth-century scientific positivism.

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Wang, Yilun; Kosinski, Michal: “Composite faces and the average facial landmarks built by averaging faces classified as most and least likely to be gay.” In: Wang, Yilun; Kosinski, Michal: “Deep Neural Networks Can Detect Sexual Orientation From Faces.” Forthcoming in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [https://osf.io/zn79k]

And here the whole endeavor becomes most problematic, the scientist have chosen to publish composite portraits of male and female – gay and straight ‘faces’, showing “the average landmark locations and aggregate appearance of the faces classified as most and least likely to be gay.” And this visual data is in a second step used to classify the outer appearance of homosexual people. These remarks sound just like an excerpt from Lombroso’s or Galton’s work, who are not only known as father figures of the racist and ‘pseudo-scientific’ fields of criminal anthropology and eugenics, but also pioneered the technique of composite portraiture:

“Average landmark locations revealed that gay men had narrower jaws and longer noses, while lesbians had larger jaws. Composite faces suggest that gay men had larger foreheads than heterosexual men, while lesbians had smaller foreheads than heterosexual women.”[1]

In their article Kosinski and Wang mention the long problematic (scientific) history of physiognomy, but argue that, despite all taboos, scientific evidence suggested such a link. In the case of the visual signs for specific sexual orientations, they point to hormonal theories and genetic dispositions, but also social factors; or ‘nature and nurture’ as it is referred to in the report, an expression coined by Sir Francis Galton himself. And this inconsiderate approach to scientific theories, techniques and terminology of the past seems to characterize their study, such as the application of the term ‘race’ in relation to ethnic diversity.

As sort of a disclaimer, ethical issues and privacy concerns are discussed and the authors warn that government and private agencies were already involved with identifying face-based classifiers that are aimed at detecting intimate traits. While Kosinski and Wang argue that their findings could alert the public, rather than providing evidence against a minority group, the thoughtless and (historically) uncritical publication of a visually strong and potentially derogative composite portrait is highly questionable and might be dangerous. This is attested by a number of newspaper articles that present short and oversimplified summaries of the findings and often use the ‘gay composite’ as a visual anchor.[2] Some are thinking the approach further and warn of algorithms that could detect psychological disposition and political inclination in the face,[3] while other journalists focus on the criticism from LGBT groups.[4]

Museum of the Mind

Research visit to the “Bethlem Museum of the Mind” & Bethlem Hospital Archive London, April, 2015.

A suburban train takes me to “Eden Park”, not only by name an idyllic village in the south-eastern periphery of London. In the back streets the cherry trees are in full bloom. I cross a creek and walk along the fence of an open space that resembles a huge park until I reach the entrance of Bethlem Royal Hospital. The “Bethlem Museum of the Mind” and its archive are located on the grounds of the psychiatric hospital that is still in operation, after a long history that dates back into the twelfth century. The representative central building of this complex that was inaugurated in 1930 has just recently been opened as the new museum. Here archivist and curator Colin Gale awaits me behind the reception desk. We have a chat about the institution and the museum, especially in late nineteenth century when Francis Galton visited the clinic and commissioned portraits of patients for his photographic experiments with the composite technique.

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The portraits of 76 male and 65 female patients are preserved among the “Galton Papers” at the Special Collections of University College London. The frontal, half-length portraits carry a number as well as family names. The archive at Bethlem holds the admission and discharge books as well as the medical files. By comparing the periods of treatment of different patients, who were often also photographed as part of the asylum’s procedure, the photos in the “Galton Papers” can be dated to 1880-1882. Also, not only names, but information on age, profession, family history, as well as the diagnosis notes on the treatment of the mental illness can be drawn from the material. The entries tell veritable stories of the life and fate of the individuals that were used as source material for Galton’s experiments with the composite technique. And while composite portraiture was aimed at de-individualising and typifying, these documents give back an identity and personality to the objects of study. Furthermore the photographs and the material kept at Bethlem Hospital, provide insight into the disciplinary institutions and their policies, modes of categorisation and typification of their clients, often by visual means. Museum of the Mind weiterlesen

Visualizing “Law’s Pluralities”: Artistic Practice and Legal Culture

Interactive lecture by Raul Gschrey (Frankfurt and Giessen, GCSC, artist and curator) in the context of Prof. Greta Olson’s lecture series „Cultural Approaches to Law and US American Legal Culture”

15.06.2015 16.00 ct  – Liebig University Giessen, Phil I, A4

The interactive lecture series “Cultural Approaches to Law and US American Legal Culture” invites its participants to understand law not as an independent body of rules but as inseparable from culture, narrative, images, and political economy. The particular focus of the individual lectures will be on US American legal culture(s). Guest lectures by scholars in cultural legal studies, political science, anthropology, and US American history will enable participants to examine law from several perspectives.

Law’s Pluralities

Law’s Pluralities ׀ Conference & Exhibition 06.05. – 09.05.2015

In May 2015 the conference “Law’s Pluralities” will take place at Justus Liebig University Giessen/Germany. In a series of keynote presentations by experts and in panel sessions and discussions, as well as in an exhibition it will explore cultural constructions of law.

06.05. – 24.05.2015 exhibition at „Neuer Kunstverein Giessen“ & during the conference „Law’s Pluralities“ at Liebig University Giessen, Germany. Artists: Il-Jin Choi ׀ Raul Gschrey ׀ Mi You ׀ Manu Luksch

The interrogation of the cultural construction and negotiation of legal practices in the conference „Law’s Pluralities“ offers an interesting occasion for the presentation of an exhibition of artistic works dealing with the topic. The international artistic positions reflect on the social and legal frameworks and find means to visualise phenomena that often remain abstract. Furthermore here the artistic interventions themselves contribute to the differentiation and development of “legal writing”. Through their explorations, contestations and subversions, they participate in an alternative production of knowledge and function as mediators of and shape legal practices. The exhibition will be located at the conference venue and in the close-by “Neuer Giessner Kunstverein”, a local art association. This will expand the exhibition’s and conference’s reception towards a non-academic public open the discourse on the politically and socially relevant topic to a larger public.

The conference and exhibition is organized at Justus Liebig University Giessen by the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) in cooperation with the  Department of English, the Rudolf-von-Jhering Institute, and in cooperation with the Neuer Kunstverein Giessen.

Bertillon Exhibited

Research trip to the „Musée de la Préfecture de Police“ in Paris/France, January 2015

The museum of the police prefecture of Paris is located in the centre of town. It is only a five minute walk from the “Ile de la Cité”, the central court of Paris and the historical Prefecture where in nineteenth century Alphonse Bertillon resided in the upper stories as the head of the department of judiciary identification. The museum is however not housed equally grandiose, but in the third storey of a post-war concrete building. Already in the forecourt a sombre looking police officer blocks my way, the secret parole “museum” changes his expression and he leads me through a door. Here again, in a dark waiting room, ripe with the smell of the self-service coffee machine, faded posters of police announcements and wanted posters, I am lost.  Another obstacle, this time a desk manned by a team of officers, has to be overcome before I am granted access to the elevator.

Right opposite  of the entrance door to the museum there’s a section on the “Scientific Police”, mainly on Bertillon’s work. An accumulation of framed photographs and texts as well as objects introduces the development of identification and scientific police work. Among these are reproductions of historical photographs, of the process of taking anthropometric measurements, the archive of the Bertillonage records, tables for the portrait parlé, as well as crime scene photographs and reproductions of fingerprints. A huge enlarger takes up much of the space, but leaves room for a staged photo shooting – wooden posing chair and historical camera. Two puppets are representing a seated suspect under the gaze of a photographer whose face is clearly modelled on Bertillon – here he is the “Father of Scientific Detection” standing right in front of me, but slightly stiff. Another puppet operates a small wooden ordering cabinet for the Bertillonage identification cards, as it was used in the introductory phase of the new technique of biometric identification. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the records filled endless rows of shelves in the former police archive and a team of clerks were employed to order and retrieve the identification cards. Some of the cards and judiciary photographs are now kept in the archive of the Police Prefecture that I could visit on my last trip to Paris. In a corner a suitcase of instruments for taking the eleven anthropometric measurements of the Bertillonage rests in a vitrine.

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When I arrive at the museum for a second time and ask for an appointment with a curator, the staff leads me into a small office. Even though my earlier message apparently didn’t reach her the woman greets me enthusiastically, as if she’d expected me. The room is overflowing with papers, boxes, objects – like tidal waves this ocean crashes onto her table. Bertillon Exhibited weiterlesen

Experiencing Space – Spacing Experience

The publication Experiencing Space – Spacing Experience: Concepts, Practices, and Materialities of the GCSC conference at  Ruhrtriennale 2013 was finally released. The book is available at WVT Verlag. My article is on art and surveillance and also refers to artistic strategies of subverting face recognition:

Raul Gschrey: “Opening the Closed Circuit: Artistic Practices in Spaces under Surveillance.” In: Experiencing Space – Spacing Experience: Concepts, Practices, and Materialities.Berning, Nora; Schulte, Philipp; Schwanecke, Christine (eds.) Trier: WVT, 2014, 259-273.

Table of Contents

Interdisciplinary approaches to the intersection of space and experience, which comprise an emerging research topic in the study of culture, are few and far between. This conceptual volume maps the rapidly developing international field of research related to the presentation and representation of spatial experience as well as the experiential interfaces of space and experience – particularly in light of new directions in research, which include the exploration of space as a ‘cultural-theoretical’ or ‘psychogeographical’ category. Experiencing Space – Spacing Experience weiterlesen

Künstlerisches und wissenschaftliches Forschen

Interview von Raul Gschrey mit Michaela Filla im BiG (Büro für interdisziplinäre Gesprächskultur) im ATELIERFRANKFURT. Das komplette, bebilderte Interview zu künstlerischem und wissenschaftlichem Forschen und zu Räumen der Gegenwartskunst in Frankfurt, sowie der aktuellen Ausstellung im Atelierfrankfurt gibt es auf Pudding Explosion.

Michaela: Raul, Du bist Künsler, Lehrer und Forscher und arbeitest zur Zeit an Deiner Promotion zum Thema “Composite & Eigenface: Histories and Continuities of Human Measurement between Arts and Science” und beschäftigst Dich besonders mit der Technik der Kompositfotografie. Was genau beutet Kompositfotografie und warum beschäftigst Du Dich damit?

Raul: Also die Kompositfotografie ist eine ganz merkwürdige fotografische Technik. Sie wurde Ende des 19. Jahrhundert von dem viktorianischen Wissenschaftler Francis Galton entwickelt. Durch die Überblendung von menschlichen Gesichtern versuchte Galton auf visuelle Spezifikationen zu schließen und darüber Typisierungen herzustellen. Er ging davon aus, dass sich durch diese Technik zeigen lässt, wie zum Beispiel der typische Verbrecher oder ein gesunder Soldat des damaligen Empire aussieht. Dahinter liegt natürlich die Idee, von äußerlichen Charakteristika auf innere Dispositionen schließen zu können, d.h. anhand der Größe von Nase, Augen, Mund usw. psychische Probleme oder kriminelle Eigenschaften zu erkennen. Galtons Kompositfotografie bezieht sich auf ältere physiognomische Konzepte, als man die Maße und Proportionen vom menschlichen Kopf bzw. Gesicht nahm, um anhand dieser auf Charaktereigenschaften zu schließen. Galton gilt übrigens heute als Begründer der Eugenik, also einer Vererbungspolitik die darauf abzielte, den Anteil positiv bzw. negativ bewerteter Erbanlagen zu vergrößern bzw. zu verringern. Seine Theorien wurden später zum Bezugspunkt nationalsozialistischer Rassenlehre.

Was mich besonders an der Technik interessiert, ist, dass sie zu Beginn der Fotografie entstand. 1870 war die Fotografie ein junges Medium im Findungsprozess und bewegte zwischen einer mechanischen, objektiv-wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der Realität und künstlerisch kreativen Ansätzen, bei denen es eher darum ging Stimmungen auszudrücken. Kompositfotografien, die zur vermeintlich wissenschaftlichen Analyse eingesetzt wurden, tatsächlich aber eher wie Geisterbilder aussahen, lagen irgendwo dazwischen. Künstlerisches und wissenschaftliches Forschen weiterlesen

Visualising the Criminal

Research visit to Bedford and the collection of the earliest preserved judiciary photographs of Britain, Beds & Luton Archives and National Archives, London, July 2014.

Bedford station emits a small town atmosphere – a relive after the hectic London streets.  I start walking in the direction where I expect the town centre and ask some people for the way to my hotel. It turns out to be more difficult than expected, but I meet an elderly man who is happy to help and join me. He tells me that this weekend there’s the big river festival. While we are walking – as it later turns out in the wrong direction – we get to talk about the city and he shows me some landmarks.

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Turning a corner, we are suddenly facing the prison complex of Bedford – this is the place where the first British judiciary photographs were produced in the nineteenth century. The history of Bedford Prison dates back to the 10th century and the current prison was built in 1801, it has been expanded in 1840 and in 1990 when a new block was added. In the early nineteenth century state of the art prison included a turnkey’s lodge and cells for different convicts such as debtors and felons. Penal work was mandatory and a system of solitary confinement and silence was severely enforced. Meals were taken in the cells and also during work hours on the treadmill prisoners were kept separate. In 1840 the goal was enlarged and houses for the governor and chief wardens were attached.[1] Just recently, in 2012, it was revealed that the institution has the highest suicide rate of all English and Welsh prisons.[2] We walk on and when getting closer to the riverside the quiet atmosphere disappears.  We walk past large crowds of people amusing themselves with music, food and drink. And there it is – my hotel – right in the epicenter of the festivities, fortunately my room faces the backside.

Early the next morning I walk to the municipal building where Beds & Luton Archives are located. The nice staff leads me to a table in a well lit room and produces a large, leather bound volume that holds the prison records and portraits of Bedford Prison. Visualising the Criminal weiterlesen

Ambiguities & Asymmetries

“Ambiguities & Asymmetries”, Review of the SSN Conference, Barcelona, 2014

The bi-annual conference of the Surveillance Studies Network 2014 takes place in the centre of Barcelona, on the campus of the University of Barcelona and the adjoining cultural institution CCCB. This year’s conference’s topic opens the floor to discussions of “Asymmetries and Ambiguities” in Surveillance Studies. The attention for the conference is unusual, not only in academia, as it becomes obvious in the comparably large number of 170 participants, but also in exceptional public and media attention. This surely has to do with the revelations of Edward Snowden and the so-called NSA scandal, which have proved true or surpassed the often dismissed observations of the surveillance studies community. Here especially “asymmetries” come to the fore: between an all-encompassing state-run surveillance assemblage, drawing on private sources, on the one side and disempowered individuals on the other.

In the evening panel discussion (videos available online) with Caspar Bowden (a privacy advocate and former Microsoft executive), Katarzyna Szymielewicz (human rights lawyer, Panoptykon Foundation), and Ben Wizner (Snowden’s lawyer) who is participating via video connection, these asymmetries become apparent. Ambiguities & Asymmetries weiterlesen