Artist Statement

June 9 – August 21, Santa Mònica Art Centre, from the Beep Collection. Public Event.

“Level of Confidence” is an art project to commemorate the mass kidnapping of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa normalista school in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. It was released on March 26, 2015, exactly six months after the kidnapping took place. The project consists of a face-recognition camera that has been trained to tirelessly look for the faces of the disappeared students. As you stand in front of the camera, the system uses algorithms to find which student’s facial features look most like yours and gives a “level of confidence” on how accurate the match is, in percent.

The biometric surveillance algorithms used, -Eigen, Fisher and LBPH-, are typically used by military and police forces to look for suspicious individuals whereas in this project they are used to search for victims instead. The piece will always fail to make a positive match, as we know that the students were likely murdered and burnt in a massacre where government, police forces and drug cartels were involved, but the commemorative side of the project is the relentless search for the students and the overlap of their image with the public’s own facial features.

The project software is available for free download so that any university, cultural centre, gallery or museum can set-up the piece and exhibit it. To show the work the institution must download the project software and provide a computer, screen and webcam.

The full instructions and specifications are in this PDF document: https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/texts/manuals/level_of_confidence_specs.pdf

The project also exists as an open source software, which can be modified by any programmer with knowledge of OpenFrameworks so that he or she can make their own version, with different content. An example may be someone who trains the algorithms with images from missing aboriginal women in Canada. To download the source code please visit our GitHub.

On the launch of the “Level of Confidence” project, already the piece is planned to be exhibited at the MUAC Museum in Mexico City and at Universities across Mexico like Iberoamericana, UAM, Universidad de las Artes, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes and others. Internationally the piece is being shown at Lozano-Hemmer’s exhibition at Art Bärtschi Gallery in Geneva, by the FOFA Gallery at Concordia University in Montréal and by the Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. We shall update this page as more exhibitors show the work.

The piece can be acquired for art collections, but all proceeds are directed to a fund to help the affected community, for example in scholarships for new students at the normalista school. The work is editioned with 12 copies and one AP, includes all the equipment, installation and a certificate of authenticity. It can be acquired through any of Lozano-Hemmer’s galleries.
https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/level_of_confidence.php

• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Ciudad de México, 1967. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer received a B.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. Media artist working at the intersection of architecture and performance art. He creates platforms for public participation using technologies such as robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, media walls, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his light and shadow works are “antimonuments for alien agency”. He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale with an exhibition at Palazzo Van Axel in 2007. He has also shown at Biennials in Cuenca, Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Melbourne NGV, Moscow, New Orleans, New York ICP, Seoul, Seville, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Wuzhen. His public art has been commissioned for the Millennium Celebrations in Mexico City 1999, the Expansion of the European Union in Dublin 2004, the Student Massacre Memorial in Tlatelolco 2008, the Vancouver Olympics 2010, the pre-opening exhibition of the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi 2015, and the activation of the Raurica Roman Theatre in Basel 2018. Collections holding his work include MoMA and Guggenheim in New York, TATE in London, MAC and MBAM in Montreal, Jumex, and MUAC in Mexico City, DAROS in Zurich, MONA in Hobart, 21C Museum in Kanazawa, Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, CIFO in Miami, MAG in Manchester, SFMOMA in San Francisco, ZKM in Karlsruhe, SAM in Singapore and many others. He has received two BAFTA British Academy Awards for Interactive Art in London, a Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, “Artist of the year” Rave Award from Wired Magazine, a Rockefeller fellowship, the Trophée des Lumières in Lyon, an International Bauhaus Award in Dessau, the title of Compagnon des Arts et des Lettres du Québec in Quebec, and the Governor General’s Award in Canada. He has lectured at Goldsmiths College, the Bartlett School, Princeton, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Cooper Union, USC, MIT MediaLab, Guggenheim Museum, LA MOCA, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Cornell, UPenn, SCAD, Danish Architecture Center, CCA in Montreal, ICA in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago.  In 2016, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Daniel Canogar, jointly and honorably, received the ARCO-Beep Electronic Art Award.
  http://www.lozano-hemmer.com   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Lozano-Hemmer
  [Source: https://www.beepcollection.art]