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March 07, 2007
Shoeveillance (interview with Marc Bohlen)
excerpt from interview:
A friend of mine told me about an interaction designer who had devised a way for people living in a not very posh neighborhood of London to pass through the streets of their area and yet avoid the gaze of the CCTV network. But it turned out that people were not happy with the idea, they actually liked to be on surveillance camera. Do you think a system like Shoeveillance could make everyone happy: maximum data collection and minimum invasion?
Yes. Let's make everyone happy! Shoeveillence plays with the desire to be seen to some degree. Parading your shoes is a special kind of pleasure, an accepted form of exhibitionism. It is one I would like machines we share the world with to be fluent in. We will have to wait for compliments, though, the appreciation of good shoes is beyond AI today. In HCI (Human Computer Interaction) community, some people speak of 'shy sensors', sensors with low-bandwidth input (such as a button) from which you derive information based on the sensor's location. If you want to know if someone is sitting in a chair without watching them on a camera, for example, you put a button in the chair. Shoeveillence, however, takes in high-bandwidth data (streaming video). It is tamed physically (by its position on the ground and its lens system), disciplined programmatically (by its algorithm) not to notice anything but shoes and incapable of being invasive but geared to be persistently and maximally shoe centric. This is a new kind of problem solving, I think.
gloria's thoughts...
I've been thinking of changing my approach to give it more of a fashion angle and instead of just to create wearables to hide from cctv, to create faux-souveillance fashion accesories. Call attention to your fashionable wear while hiding your identity. This resolves the conflict I was having of wanting to use highly reflective material to allow for a private moment. This will allow wearer to stand out and hide at the same time.
Posted by ges3 at March 7, 2007 04:51 PM