[ecrea] CFP – Biometrics: Mediating Bodies

*CFP – Biometrics: Mediating Bodies *//

//

Special issue #60 of/*PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas*/**

Publication Fall 2019**

Biometrics refers to the way that bodies are measured and identified. It 
uses the logic of calculation to reduce the identity of a body to a set 
of data. In her work on facial recognition, Kelly Gates (2011) reminds 
us that biometric identification is a way of addressing the “problem of 
‘disembodied identities,’ or the existence of visual and textual 
representations of individuals that circulate independent of their 
physical bodies,” a situation that has been particularly exacerbated 
with the rise of media technologies since the nineteenth century. This 
issue of PUBLIC works to understand the many ways that biometrics 
reinserts the body into mediated communication.

Signatures are one pre-digital example of the ways that we have isolated 
something producedby the body as a form of authoritative representation. 
Today, features of the body itself—such as the face, heartbeat, gait, 
fingerprint, DNA, voice—are used not only by humans to recognize each 
other, but also as a way to program computers, machines and electronic 
systems to read bodies and identify them, and thus to integrate the 
biometric body into digital networks of processing. This externalization 
of the body into information and data is part of the larger story of 
identification and verification protocols (Caplan & Torpey 2001; 
Robertson 2009), situating biometrics within practices of the security 
and surveillances apparatus that reduce identity to a set of “facts” 
that are assessed and processed “objectively.” Unable to escape our body 
and its biometric signature, we are on the one hand controlled by our 
inability to conceal ourselves and powerless in the face of this 
empirical self, all the while also falling for convenient applications 
that use our bodies, and extract its data along the way (e.g., Apple’s 
Face ID).

Biometrics are also part of the systems being developed to produce 
seamless and “natural” human-computer connections and interactions, and 
are especially articulated in areas such as artificial intelligence 
(AI), human-centered computing or programmed environments. The resulting 
responsive experiences, touted as improving everything from efficiency 
to safety to entertainment, have taken a central place in the imaginary 
of the technological future, but for some they are also examples of a 
dehumanizing form of communication. As is the case in the history of 
emerging technologies, reactions diverge between the enthusiastically 
uncritical and the cautious or even fearful. But what are some other 
ways that we can think biometrics? What kinds of speculations or 
possibilities are afforded by systems that can read and respond to 
individual bodies? In the realm of the media arts, for example, 
biometrics provides new ways to produce works that create empathetic or 
affective interactions between humans and computers. The surveilled body 
becomes the complicit body, offering a future in which the divisions 
between human and machine are increasingly blurred. Here systems that 
“recognize us” are working towards the dream of seamless connectivity, 
of natural connection with machines that see and know every body.

While the biometric body is a way to assess and distinguish individuals, 
the ability to measure is also an ability to standardize. 
Computer-generated humanoid bodies produced for games or cinema are one 
example of the way that digital representations may circulate as models 
and templates for what then become normalized and legitimated bodies. 
But where is the line between modelling work and classification 
projects, such as those that motivated Bertillon’s activities or more 
recent attempts to associate certain physical attributes with 
personality traits or even sexual orientation (Kosinki & Wang 2017)?

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/Biometrics: Mediating Bodies /will work across these diverse approaches 
to the body and its data by thinking about biometrics through diverse 
fields of use and application. We seek critical speculations, scholarly 
essays and creative projects that engage with the history, politics and 
practices of the machine-readable body. Topics can include, but are not 
limited to:

-- Case studies of specific technologies or their applications

-- Cultural and technical histories of the biometric body

-- Theorizations of biometrics

-- Representations and visualizations of the biometric body

-- Creative and critical approaches to biometrics

-- Biometrics in media art

-- The biometric in human-computer interactions and responsive systems

-- The biometric body in movement and circulation

-- Identifying, surveilling and securing the biometric body

-- The politics of biometrics

-- Night vision, drone vision, facial recognition technologies and other 
vision machines

-- Data gathering and processing as applied to bodies, including 
algorithmic methods

-- Concealment, failure and the subversion of biometric assessment

*Abstracts 350 words: 5 September 2018**
*

*Invitation to submit full papers: 1 October 2018**
*

*Text and project deadline (3-6,000 words): 1 February 2019**
*

*Please send abstracts and brief bio to: **(public /at/ yorku.ca)* 
<mailto:(public /at/ yorku.ca)>

*PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas* is a peer-reviewed journal that explores the 
intersection of visual culture and critical studies. Since 1988, it has 
served as an intellectual and creative forum that focuses on the 
intersections of aesthetic, theoretical and critical issues. In each 
themed issue, PUBLIC encourages a broad range of dialogue by bringing 
together artists, theorists, curators, philosophers, creative writers 
and historians. For further information, visit www.publicjournal.ca 
<http://www.publicjournal.ca/>.


Editors for issue #60 are Aleksandra Kaminska (Assistant Professor, 
Université de Montréal) and David Grondin (Associate Professor, 
Université de Montréal).
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