After completing the reading, I now understand the many ways in which computer vision differs from human vision. More specifically, computer vision tends to rely on the observation and analysis of pixels on a screen, whether it is through comparing frames, brightness of pixels, or their overall movement. Unlike humans, a computer does not automatically understand the meaning behind what it sees. Instead, it needs specific features to be identified and tracked through an algorithm. This means that even something that seems obvious to a human, such as recognizing different people or understanding their expression, can be a difficult task for a computer. As a result, interactive art requires very controlled variables and environments in order for computer vision to be useful. An example shared in the reading was the game LimboTime. This was only able to work because the game took place in front of a white screen, allowing the programmers to use brightness-based thresholding to distinguish the players from the background. This has me thinking about how much of the “vision” in computer vision actually depends on the artist designing the environment around the technology. Rather than simply making a program smarter, the artist can make the problem easier by controlling the lighting, colors, and background. This is quite interesting to me because it almost reverses the way I normally think about interactive art. Instead of designing the environment entirely for the human to experience and interact with, part of the environment has to be designed for the computer as well.
Despite how interesting this topic is, the parts related to surveillance raised some flags for me. It made me realize that not only can computer vision be used for interactive art, but it can also be used to monitor people without their consent. For example, the artwork called Sorting Daemon analyzes people on the street and uses them within the artwork. Whilst the artwork was motivated by the artist’s “concerns about the increasing use of automated systems for profiling people” it made me question if the artist was not playing into the same problem. The artwork is criticizing the use of automated systems to profile people, but it still requires those people to be monitored and analyzed in order to make that criticism. This made me wonder whether the artistic purpose changes the ethical implications of surveillance, or if being used for an artwork without knowing about it is still a form of surveillance regardless of the artist’s intentions.