#nancyburson

In week 4 we were given a brief about the use of modern facial recognition technology, we were tasked to create a photographic project focussing on these technologies. Individually we decided to look at different ideas, I decided to look at modern and everyday uses of facial recognition such as Snapchat. My independent idea  that my idea would to focus of trying to trick the facial recognition software used in Snapchat and glitch it, I decided I would do this by using different things to cover different parts of the face to see how this effects the outcome. I thought it would be interesting to challenge the algorithm that creates these, therefore questioning technologies position in modern society.

Within the group discussion concerning the idea we each put forward our ideas which brought to light some similarities between our ideas. For example Chloe, Leah and I had quite similar ideas which were generally based around the use of Snapchat. The other two members of our group Sam and Emily came up with an idea to use face paint to deceive facial recognition software which would essentially question the same elements that my idea would but in a different method. It was decided that we would not use camera phone technology this time as we had use that method of capture for the last project, we did not want to use it again. The group also thought that it would be to common of an idea and something a lot of people would do because of our accessibility to the technology of Snapchat. Therefore we decided to go ahead with the face paint idea which would demonstrate what we wanted it to as well as working with something I had never worked with before.

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Artist Research – Nancy Burson

Nancy Burson was born in 1948 and is an artist from American and is best known for using ‘computer morphing technology’ to create her work. Burson work within her role as an artist and photographer mean she combined art and innovation in a manner that, at the time, questions the truth of digital manipulation in the photographic and artistic field. One of her most well known piece is ‘The Human Race Machine’.

‘The Human Race Machine’ was commissioned by Zaha Hadid, a Iraqi-British architect, but was invented by Burson. On its completion the work made its debut in the ‘Mind Zone’ of the Millennium Dome in January 2000, within the zone there were 4 machines that could be used with this ‘race morphing technology’. Initially the intentions of the idea were to create an interactive tool that could resolve some of humanities racial problems and issues like similar machines had been used before, like the Age Machine, to find missing people. A phase often used in association with the project was that the concept of race was in fact not genetic but social meaning that ‘there is no gene for race’. It also appears that some of the mages were composited into to a sequence, using the same person, and then was used for distribution of billboards and others of the like to bring the message to the attention of the masses and ensure that will the development in modern technologies we do not all prejudices or racism to prevail. I believe the series has a very important message supporting which is something I would be very enthusiastic to carry through to a project regarding this subject.

http://youtu.be/q45N68b_Gns 

Nancy Burson interviewed by Sıla Özçelik Yener 

* Can you please tell us about your new video art which has been shown in NYFOL, ‘’light the world with love’’. There is a very unique technique that you’ve used in this video which is also you are waiting a patent for. Can you please tell us about this technique and how you found and worked on it? the process of creating this technique?

I’ve always made drawings through the decades and about three years ago I started drawing using both hands. It’s a way to keep the brain balanced that feels very soothing. I kind of developed my own language through using two pencils or pens together, and that language eventually evolved into nothing more than writing words using both hands. To me, the most significant word in any language is Love and the most important phrase to say is “I Love You.” I wanted to focus on using the phrase “I Love You” as well as using the word Love. It was through drawing both handed that I discovered a system of seeing words or phrases in three directions simultaneously. I started with the word Love and then I found that the system works for phrases as well as words, and for any number of letters in most languages, two dimensionally and three dimensionally.

* What is your claim and the message you want to give in this video art?

I wanted to send a message of Love to the Earth in all different languages. It’s a kind of a hug to the world to say “I Love you” from all of us here on the planet. It’s a message that we can all unite through love. I also came up with a concept I call TogetherAllOne, which I’ll use as my line of designs for clothing, lighting, jewelry, and household items, as well as graphics and lighting installations that all promote the concept of global unity.

The music for the video was a collaboration with Harold Moss. He’s the head of Flickerlab Animation Studios and he’s produced two interactive iBooks of mine in the last two years. He has a personal history of songwriting and he sent me a rough cut of the music several months ago. I wrote some lyrics that night and then reminded him a few weeks ago that we had already co-written a song for the video. It just needed a producer and a singer. Harold had exactly the right ideas about who would sing it, as well as produce it. There’s a singer now based in San Francisco and she showed up in NYC the exact weekend we needed to record it! And amazingly enough, her name is Gina Breedlove! She provided the perfect voice for “Light the world with Love”.

* I also see the ‘’love’’ theme is like a fundamental in your works, is it something you work on intentionally or do these love ideas just come up with coincidence?

* You also have some video art works that have been shown in Berlin light festival, it’s amazing and it is again about love. It seems to me like as an artist you are working on something about spreading peace and love, or you are trying to get a connection with masses and trying to tell them ‘’something’’. ?

The Love work is the most important to me right now. I still believe that Love can bring changes in the world and that it’s not too late for humanity to be directed through Love. If it’s our destiny to be guided in that way, then that’s what will be. I still believe that’s possible.

And also, I have a granddaughter now and that’s a new kind of love I’m experiencing. I think that occurs in families when parents become grandparents. It’s a reminder of our own mortality, as well as a new opportunity to Love.

* How was the reaction to your video art works both in Berlin and Nyfol? Do you ever observe people seeing your work and their reactions? Do you remember any specific reaction to your works that you never ever forgotten? Like made you feel like, ‘’yes!this was the thing i was trying to make you feel...’'?

Birgit Zander, the organizer of the Berlin Festival of Light, commissioned myself and nine other artists to create projections for the Berliner Dom. I submitted two of my drawings which say “I Love You” repeated endlessly to project on the huge Cathedral. Birgit had seen an early version of the video with the different languages of Love encircling the Earth and she wanted to add more Love in different languages over my drawing. She was working with projections on the Berliner Dom that are created using glass slides in layers, plus a lot of projectors together to create the effect on the Dom. So it became layers of Love with even more layers of Love underneath! It was quite appreciated by all who saw it in Berlin this October.

The “Light the World with Love” video is now on YouTube where it’s been getting some nice comments. http://youtu.be/q45N68b_Gns

I’ve been fortunate in my career to see a lot of different reaction by lots of people to my work. There have been times that I’ve been at museums where my work was on the wall and I would stand next to people and just listen to what they were saying about it. That’s really fun to do!

There was a billboard that I had on 2000 in Downtown, NYC and the billboard was for the Human Race Machine which shows people how they’d look as a different race. It said “There’s No Gene For Race”. I heard some great comments on that corner as people would look up and see it. There were also many times that I was helping people run the Human Race Machine and most people were amazed to see themselves so differently. It was a really interesting experience for them, like stepping for a moment, in someone else’s shoes. It was fascinating to watch! In 2002, I had a retrospective exhibition at The Grey Art Gallery, NYU’s museum in NYC. The NY Times had run an article about the Human Race Machine in the exhibition and there was a line of people all through the space waiting to see themselves as a different race. As I looked over the crowd, I noticed that everyone lined up was from a family of mixed races who had all brought their children. I thought that was fabulous!

* How do you see art, especially this kind of visual arts, do you think art has a ‘’power’’ to make ‘’change’’ beliefs, prejudices and every way of thinking? Or rather do you just do arts, without u

In the smaller picture, adding a smile or a song to someone’s day can be meaningful. In the bigger picture, I’ve seen my art be significant in people’s lives while I was working with finding missing children for the FBI and other organizations. There were at least three children returned home using the new morphing technology during the first hour the children’s updates were shown on National TV. I believe very strongly in destiny and if things are meant to change, then they will change. It could very well be time for there to be many changes in our world and I’m hopeful that time is now. I would love my granddaughter to live in a world without conflict where family and community is honored over all.

* We know that you also have the patent of a photo manipulation technology which we can describe as the beginning of photoshop and composite works. Can you please tell us about this work, where and when did you created this technology and how was it welcomed in that years? And also how do you see the fast development in digital arts and digital photography, especially the rise of photoshop?

I had an idea to develop a machine that could reflect the viewer back older in the late 60’s. I got in touch with an organization pairing artists and scientists together when computer graphics was in its infancy, and there was no way to create what I was envisioning. So I kept in touch with the technical people I’d met and eventually collaborated with the predecessors of the Media Lab at MIT from 1976 to 1978. That was the beginning of the technology combining cameras and computers and my idea to age people by computer utilized one of the first scanners attached to a computer. The aged portraits as well as the composite portraits utilized a new system of morphing faces together. I began creating portraits of people who don’t exist. It was a quirky idea that developed into the body of images that still constitute my best known works. A lot of those were created a decade before Photoshop.

* As an artist where do you think your art style is standing, how do you describe your art? You seem like a ‘’innovator photographer’’ when i look your past works, not an artist only concentrated on her photographs but rather also an artist making innovations right?

If it doesn't resemble a heart shape or rainbow?"

-Excerpt from You Can Draw Love, an iBook coming soon, by Nancy Burson, produced by Moss Collective