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What When they see us is
When they see us – Quando le macchine ci guardano is an exhibition on the impact of tracking in physical and digital space in our onlife lives, set up at the Salaborsa Library in Bologna (Piazza del Nettuno, 3), and open to visitors from September 17 to 28, 2024.
The exhibition When they see us is the first event within The Next Real, the review on art, AI and society that Sineglossa is organizing in Bologna from September 2024 to June 2025. The exhibition addresses the theme of digital rights, reflecting on the risks of AI and the threats of biometric surveillance, through some installations by Belgian artist Dries Depoorter (1991), and some datavisualization works by research group Tactical Tech.
Curated by Sineglossa, the exhibition When they see us is promoted by the associations The Good Lobby and Hermes Center for Digital Rights, in collaboration with info.nodes, already active in the campaign against biometric recognition Reclaim Your Face.
Opening and talk
When They See Us opens Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. with a talk given by artist Dries Depoorter, along with philosopher and essayist Franco “Bifo” Berardi and Federico Bomba, director at Sineglossa, moderated by Antonella Napolitano (Hermes Center).
Free admission.
Artists and projects on show
The When they see us exhibition takes its title from the TV miniseries of the same name, which tells the story of a group of African Americans unjustly accused of a crime, only for the fact that on paper they are the perfect suspects. The exhibited works, through different languages, open a reflection on the risks of discrimination and inequality that an automated gaze can amplify uncontrollably.
Jaywalking (2015-2024), by Dries Depoorter, is an interactive installation where you can report jaywalkers recklessly crossing the road. The installation can automatically catch them by showing on monitors unprotected surveillance footage coming in real time from traffic webcams located in different countries. The installation offers visitors the opportunity to report jaywalkers by pushing a button: a single push can send a screenshot of the violation to the nearest police station via email. Depoorter then presents us with a dilemma: will we report the unsuspecting jaywalker?
Surveillance speaker (2018-2024) is an installation on surveillance and artificial intelligence. Surveillance cameras are present all over the world today. They have become so familiar that we no longer see them, and we forget that we are constantly being monitored. This installation reminds us of this, through a camera, a computer, and a speaker. A camera on a high pole focuses closely on you. Thanks to artificial intelligence and the latest technology, the camera provides vocal feedback on what it sees, by saying through the loudspeaker the phrase: ‘I see…’
Border birds (2022 – 2024) by Dries Depoorter and Bieke Depoorter depicts photographs of birds crossing borders between countries around the world, captured with the help of open cameras and AI. The project was realised by developing a software that detects birds on footage captured by open surveillance cameras placed at boundary lines. The software used artificial intelligence running on a 24/7 server between March 10th and April 10th 2022. The server captured more than 3,474 birds through multiple cameras around the world. Later, a curated selection of 100 Border Birds was made. 50% of the revenue from this project goes to the European Network of Migrant Women and the Red Cross supporting refugees. The monitored cameras are located at the borders of Mexico/United States, Morocco/Spain, Greece/Turkey, and France/England. The artists used a Nvidia Jetson Nano to be able to detect birds in images.
Non-governmental organization Tactical Tech offers a data visualization journey with The Glass Room Misinformation Edition project, an installation in which posters and illustrations explain how the risks of invisible and unfair surveillance affect much of our digital presence.
A potential disruptive factor eroding the threshold between public and intimate, private. In the name of security, being seen turns into a quantitative fact with which governments can exercise invisible forms of power and companies produce profits in the name of mass surveillance. Being seen, on the other hand, makes marginal communities more vulnerable, victims of machines trained with data that amplify and make inescapable biases already present in societies.
Opening hours
The exhibition When They See Us will be open at the Salaborsa Library, Piazza del Nettuno 3, Bologna, from Sept. 17 to 28, during the following opening hours:
Tuesday, 17/09 7 p.m. – 8 p.m;
Wednesday, 18/09 – Friday, 20/09: 9 a.m. – 8 p.m;
Monday 23/09 2 p.m. – 8 p.m;
Tuesday, 24/09 – Friday, 27/09 9 a.m. – 8 p.m;
Saturday, 28/09 hours 9 a.m. – 7 p.m;
closed on Sunday.
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