[kcimc]

OP here. Just to clarify, this piece was not primarily designed for the Apple Store audience. I felt that it was important to exhibit the photos in the store, but I knew that the majority of the folks who heard about it would see it online. In the exhibition at the store, people first saw a photo of themselves, with no knowledge that they were posted to the internet. Online, people saw photos of folks in the store. If you have spent time in a big city like NYC, you might recognize the feelings of anonymity and privacy-in-public that I was drawing on. There are certainly "I'm harming you for your own good" style art installations I've made. For example, I had a piece called "Wifi Whisperer" around 2016 that sniffed all the open wifi traffic in a cafe, and a little speaker in the corner would describe what it sniffed. https://soundcloud.com/kyle-mcdonald/whisper I still think there is a place for non-consensual art to surprise and inform, especially in the physical context of an art exhibition or festival. But I also feel this work tends towards provoking fear and anger over any more helpful reactions. And there's the constant danger that in the process of crossing a boundary of consent, or in breaking a social contract that you might do real, even irreversible harm. So instead with projects like https://facework.app/ I find ways to critique face classification, but in a way that everything happens in-browser. Sometimes it's possible to have the feeling of boundary crossing without the dangers.