I was surprised by the ways in which computer vision works with interactive art. Recently, I have been interested in public surveillance and curious about the use of technology in the field. The Suicide Box was the one I thought was meaningful and useful. Recognizing suicide attempts in the Golden Gate Bridge, humans devised a machine to detect the vertical motion of people and hence make a guess on whether or not the person is about to jump off the bridge.
The debate that arose around the Suicide Box was interesting as well. The question of “is it ethically okay to record suicides” and “are the recordings real” make us think if the invention of such technology is necessary or useful. As of I know, there are still a lot of questions regarding the topic of public surveillance and the use of technology for face recognition and video recording. While I think these tools are very useful, I also understand the ethical concerns that comes with the uses of the tools.
To continue, computer vision is quite difficult to use considering the setting in which it works best. For example, background subtraction and brightness thresholding could fail if the person in the scene have similar color or brightness to his surroundings. The fact that we have to design the physical conditions in which computer visions will be used is bothering. Although computer visions in their perfect setting works well and abstracts useful information, figuring out ways to use computer vision in any setting would be even more useful and beneficial to the society.
In short, the intersectional study and use of computer vision and interactive media seems to have great potential in the coming future. Computer vision and interactive media have areas in which they can be used and the developments made so far show how life in general can advance.