The group used Yoke Collective’s method of harnessing make up and hair extensions to avoid detection from facial recognition technologies. Combined with the creation of digital masks via SPARK AR as the cornerstone for our video, they explored the dynamics of power and privacy in the digital age. As a response to the workshop, artists Pietro Bardini and Vangelis Trichias worked with Antonio Roberts to create Evasive Techniques.
How they responded:
Pietro contributed to this video with an audio-visual piece delving into the relationship between movement tracking technology and ritualistic performances. Pietro's piece was inspired by Sufi folklore and the tale of the moth and the flame - the parable tells the story of how one moth experienced enlightenment by flying into the candle flame and being consumed in the flame, thereby literally attaining oneness with the flame. For this work, he created a bespoke Max patch to track and distil a choreography from the moth's deep hypnotization. Perhaps experienced by the moths as a sort of ancestral call, he's raising the idea of using technology to dig into ritualistic, mystical practices as a way to extract and elevate their core, distilled essences.
As a response to the latter, Vangelis wrote a poem in Newspeak, the artificial language from Orwell’s 1984 novel. The poem is written from the perspective of a voyeuristic tyrant who craves to mentally dominate a rebel.
Watch the video in the gallery above.
