From: Thomas Beard (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Jan 29 2009 - 15:31:57 PST
Light Industry
http://www.lightindustry.org
Hooded and Headless: An Erratic Survey of Anonymity in Recent Video and Life
Curated by Harry Dodge
Friday, January 30, 2009 at 7:30pm
55 33rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, New York
"The human brain is bombarded with information, and our brains automatically
eliminate redundant information and remember only unique features in order
to identify objects or people. FaceIt video cameras capture a face and are
fed into a computer which identifies people by their facial features.
Visionics, the manufacturer of the system, concluded there are 80 unique
landmarks on a face, which include eye sockets, cheekbones and the bridge of
the nose. The computer measures these landmarks and their relationship to
one another. Since each face has its own unique pattern, with the exception
of identical twins, the computer is able to distinguish one person from
another by referencing the person's face against a database of known people.
While the program potentially has 80 landmarks to work with, the computer
only has to match 14 to make a reliable identification. The software ignores
changeable characteristics like: hair color, hair style, lighting, and
facial expressions. On May 7, 1999 Visionics announced that their FaceIt
surveillance system has benchmarked at 12 million comparisons per minute."
- Christopher Benjamin, "ShotSpotter and FaceIt: The Tools of Mass
Monitoring," UCLA Journal of Law and Technology (2003).
"Privacy is the basis of individuality. To be alone and be let alone, to be
with chosen company, to say what you think, or don't think but to say what
you will, is to be yourself. Solitude is imperative..."
- United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 762-763 (1971).
This program consists of a short talk on the function and condition of
anonymity vis a vis the hood, followed by a program of films and videos,
including a new work by Harry Dodge, that evoke or exploit hoods, masks,
facelessness or headlessness. What does the hood reference? What does it
allow? What is gained and lost with the obscuring of a face? (Or the
complete dispatch of a head?) What is the relationship of the face to
compassion? What is the relationship of specificity (the local) to ethical
response? What is possible in a performance without a face?
Kardinal, Otto Muehl, 16mm, 1967, 5 mins
Clown, Luther Price, S8mm, 1991, 13 mins
Somethings Gonna Soon, Math Bass and Dylan Mira, video, 2008, 4 mins
See Yourself, Nadia Dougherty, video, 2008, 4 mins
This Beast Called Force, Harry Dodge, video, 2008, 16 mins
Essential Current Affairs, Dan Acostioaei, video, 2003, 4 mins
Being Bamboo, Brian Bress, video, 2006, 3 mins
Sans Gravity, Nao Bustamante, video, 1998, 1 min
Porky, John Sturgeon, video, 1974, 2 mins
Deadendless, Tom Dale, video, 2007, 2 mins
Venery, Matt Sobel and Chuck Gordon, 2008, 4 mins
among others.
Harriet "Harry" Dodge is a visual artist working in video and sculpture,
with a focus on shape, unnameability, and hybridity/defiance. In the 90's
Dodge ran a community-based performance space called The Bearded Lady, while
also writing and performing several critically-acclaimed, large-scale
monologues. By Hook or By Crook, an award-winning, feature-length movie
which Dodge co-wrote, edited, and directed, premiered in 2000. After
graduating with an MFA from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard
College in 2003, Dodge became part of a collaborative videomaking team whose
work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the
2008 Whitney Biennial. More recently, Dodge co-founded the collaboration
TESTHOLE, which has since undertaken a series of community-based,
interventions/partnerships experimenting with decomposition and fertility.
Dodge teaches art and writing at CalArts, UCLA and UCSD.
Tickets - $7, available at door.
About Light Industry
Light Industry is a new venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New
York. Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project has
begun as a series of events at Industry City in Sunset Park, each organized
by a different artist, critic, or curator. Conceptually, Light Industry
draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in
New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid
film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and
lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of
time-based media and foster an ongoing dialogue amongst a wide range of
artists and audiences within the city.
About Industry City
Industry City, an industrial complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is home to a
cross-section of manufacturing, warehousing and light industry. As part of a
regeneration program intended to diversify the use of its 6 million square
feet of space to better reflect 21st century production, Industry City now
includes workspace for artists. In addition to offering studios at
competitive rates, Industry City also provides a limited number of low-cost
studios for artists in need of reasonably priced space. This program was
conceived in response to the lack of affordable workspace for artists in New
York City and aims to establish a new paradigm for industrial
redevelopment--one that does not displace artists, workers, local residents
or industry but instead builds a sustainable community in a context that
integrates cultural and industrial production.
For more information, please visit http://www.industrycityartproject.org/
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.