Public Online Masterclass: Facial Recognition Camouflage

*Booking opens at 11am on Tuesday 19th May*

Join Yoke Collective for this online masterclass in camouflaging techniques used by anti-surveillance activists. With face paint, stickers, hair extensions and other materials that you have lying around at home, Yoke will teach you to hide yourself from facial recognition technologies and to protect your biometric data from the camera's gaze. Reclaim your image through graphic and striking looks and join Yoke in a discussion about surveillance in public and private spaces. The session will also look at possible future fashion trends within a society of increased security and monitoring of the public.

What participants need to join in the workshop:

You will need to find some 'face camouflaging' materials in your home to use during the workshop, for example the following would work; but feel free be creative:

• Face paint
• Food packaging
• Wigs and hair extensions
• Make up
• Headbands, hair clips, hairbands and elastic bands
• Old clothes to be cut up or moulded
• Old sunglasses that can be tinkered with
• Various tapes and stickers
• Coloured paper and card
• Pipe cleaners
• Household products: e.g shaving foam, vegemite and nutella
• Stapler, clips and scissors
• Any other items you might feel are useful!
• Adhesives: double-sided tape, honey, sugar glue, eyelash glue, washable pritt stick
• Tools for applying: brushes and spreaders

About Yoke Collective

Yoke Collective is the artistic and curatorial partnership between Georgina Rowlands and Emily Roderick. Yoke works with collaborative research on cyber-politics, looking at increasingly intrusive surveillance systems and how these are questioned against cyber-feminist theory, challenging the positioning of the female body within the algorithms of facial and full body-recognition. Yoke is also part of The Dazzle Club which explores surveillance in public spaces, and holds a regular public walking event in protest of live facial recognition police cameras in London.

On the use of Zoom: We are using Zoom as a third party in order to enable our online knitting circles but please be aware that there are concerns about Zoom's approach to privacy. Users of Zoom should ensure that they have read and understand Zoom’s privacy policy. In any case, we recommend using the web-based version of Zoom rather than using the app, which allows greater control of the information shared with the provider. We will keep looking into our use of Zoom for online events as well as weighing up other video calling options.

Images courtesy of Yoke Collective, credit Antoni Roberts.