Situational Compliance
Matthew Biederman
Artwork Description:
Situational Compliance uses the children's game Simon Says to expose how readily we surrender autonomy to algorithmic authority. Leveraging artificial intelligence and computer vision, the work playfully examines surveillance and compliance within a society analyzed by technology. Unlike typical interactive artworks where movement triggers responsive imagery (gestures that mystify technology and render it benign), this installation reverses the power dynamic: the system commands, participants obey. The sculptural form intentionally exposes its technical apparatus, refusing the black-boxing typical of today's technology and its systems. This aesthetic choice mirrors urban surveillance infrastructure while making operational mechanisms legible. Participants see themselves transformed into skeletal keypoints, the spatial coordinate geometry fundamental to pose detection. Each pose performed represents both apparent creativity and simultaneously the negation of identity as participants are classified, judged, and categorized by the machine learning system. The work foregrounds what surveillance infrastructure often obscures: behind every camera is a system of judgment evaluating compliance and deviance. The AI issues commands in Simon Says fashion, calculating compliance scores and assigning threat levels. Initially playful instructions escalate toward authoritarian demands as players succeed: 'kneel down, hands behind your head'. The soundscape grows menacing, commands come quicker. Many participants strive to comply perfectly, even performing overtly coercive commands within the game's frame. The technologies employed (computer vision, machine learning, tracking algorithms) derive directly from the military industrial complex developed for monitoring, targeting, and control. By deploying these tools, the installation reveals how interaction aesthetics function as obedience training through the seduction of interactive art.
Project Collaborators:
Lucas Paris
