Behnaz Farahi's masks communicate in Morse code
“Can the subaltern speak?”, project by the creative technologist Behnaz Farahi, presented at Ars Electronica, from September 9 to 13, 2020, in Austria (© Behnaz Farahi)
What if we could, thanks to artificial intelligence, express ourselves non-verball, through the bliking eyes of our mask?
By Ludmilla Intravaia
Could we imagine a mask which, rather than concealing it, would reveal our identity? A mask that would help the oppressed of all genders, all faiths, all origins, to express their thoughts, opinions or emotions, despite the censorship of a tyrannical system. This mask, the creative technologist Behnaz Farahi designed it, in her project entitled "Can the subaltern speak?", including two masks, inspired by those worn by women in southern Iran.
These two masks, each equipped with 18 eyes, communicate with each other by the blinking of their eyes, using Morse code generated by artificial intelligence. Morse code is a method that uses short and long series of pulses to transmit text. Relying on machine learning and the ability of AI to learn from the data collected, the masks develop their own non-verbal language to respond to each other. Watch them in action below.
This project was presented in the online exhibition "Returning the Gaze" (see here), curated by Behnaz Farahi, during Ars Electronica festival, from September 9 to 13, 2020, in Austria.
* Ars Electronica website is here. Behnaz Farahi's is there.
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