- 20th September 2017

Still working on it

What do you want to make?
One:

The study “Deep Neural Networks (DNN) can detect sexual orientation from faces” by Yilun Wang and Michael Kosinski claims to show that faces contain information about sexual orientation and that AI can interpreted this better than humans. An Artificial Intelligence Gaydar so to say.

With one image of one person the DNN can tell with an accuracy of 81% of a man is gay and a 71% accuracy if a woman is lesbian. When the DNN is fed 5 images the accuracy goes up to 91% for gay men and 83% for lesbians. This doesn’t mean that the DNN can say from an image that you are gay, but it can differentiate the sexual orientation of two persons put next to each other. 

Their findings show that the results of the study are consistent with PHT (prenatal hormone theory), “which argues that same-gender sexual orientation stems from the underexposure of male fetuses and overexposure of female fetuses to prenatal androgens responsible for the sexual differentiation of faces, preferences and behavior” (Wang, Kosinski, page 30). Gay men and women tended to have gender-atypical facial morphology, expression and growing style. In this stage the research is incomplete and has a lot of ‘what if’s’, but I am more interested in the possibilities or perhaps the dangers/dread this technology can mean for the LGBTQI++ community. 

What do I want to make of this?


[where is your gaze, your eye, in this? You have been making work of people and what is the value of this aesthetic.]
Could make portraits of people and see if they are, according to the software, homosexual.

Two:


The gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Islands
“The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom (G&LK) seceded from Australia in 2004. Emperor Dale Parker Anderson declared independence upon raising the rainbow pride flag on Cato Island in the Coral Sea Island. The decision to secede was made as a response to the Australian government’s 2004 action in presenting the Amendment of the Marriage Act 1969.” (Lattas, Page 59)
Thereby creating a micronation. A micronation that would be queer nationalism’s first territorial claim. 


[ exhibition with, appropriation of the whole island, sovereign state apparatus, a room with the stamps hanging in the frame, information about the history of the state; create a fictive movie; gay flag on island like flag on moon; — there is also a guy in London propagating for gay state — would interview the guy.

[Utopian and separatist;]

A way of investigating this issue;

[red planet 1930s]

How do you plan to make it?

Two:

Describe how you will go about conducting your research through reading, writing and practice. In other words, through a combination of these approaches, you will explore questions or interests you have laid out in your general introduction. In this section you can help us understand how your project will come together on a practical level and talk about possible outcome(s). Of course, the outcome(s) may change as your research evolves, but it's important at this stage to have some concrete idea of how your project could come together as a whole. What is your timetable? Please include a timeline of what needs to be done and the order in which those things will be done. Why do you want to make it? Who can help you and how? Relation to previous practice How does your research connect to previous projects you have done? Here you can use the descriptions you made during the Methods seminar or make new descriptions. Your Text on Method will also be useful in completing this section. Relation to a larger context Meaning practices or ideas that go beyond the scope of your personal work. Write briefly about other projects or theoretical material which share an affinity with your project. For example, if you are researching urban interventions, you might want to research about Situationist approaches to psychogeography, urban tactical media and activist strategies of reclaiming the streets. Or, if you want to explore the way data is tracked, you might touch upon the politics of data mining by referencing concerns laid out by the Electronic Frontier or highlight theoretical questions raised by Wendy Chun or others. (Keep in mind that we are *not* expecting well formulated conclusions or persuasive arguments in the proposal phase. At this juncture, it's simply about showing an awareness of a broader context, which you will later build upon as your research progresses.) References A list of references (Remember that dictionaries, encyclopedias and wikipedia are not references to be listed. These are starting points which should lead to more substantial texts and practices.) As with your previous essays, the references need to be formatted according to the Harvard method.) Feel free to include any visual material to substantiate, illustrate or elucidate your proposal. For example use images to reference your work or that of others.