SVEN (Installation)

[Amy Alexander and others, 2006, USA]
SVEN asks the question: If computer vision technology can be used to detect whether you look like a terrorist, criminal, or other “undesirables” - why not when you look like a rock star? The idea behind SVEN is to humorously demystify concerns about surveillance — not in terms of being watched, but in terms of how the watching is being done. SVEN is a surveillance system installed in public places. A custom computer vision application tracks pedestrians and detects their characteristics, and a real-time video processing application generates music-video like visuals from the live camera feed. The resulting video and audio are displayed on a monitor in the public space, interrupting the standard security camera type display each time a potential “rock star” is detected.