<nettime> Legal updates, Award, Exhibitions & More – Face to Facebook Newsletter

[Paolo Cirio <info@paolocirio.net>]

Press Release,
September 7th, 2011. Linz.

Face to Facebook
http://www.face-to-facebook.net
Stealing 1 million Facebook profiles, filtering them with
face-recognition software and posting them without user authorization
on a custom-made dating website, sorted by the characteristics of
their facial expressions.
A project by Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico.


The awesome news:
The Face to Facebook project won a prestigious Award of Distinction at
Prix Ars Electronica 2011 in the "Interactive Art" category.
Furthermore the work was also on display in the related Cyberarts 2011
exhibition, which took place at the OK Centrum, in Linz (Austria).

Face to Facebook presentation, September 5, Prix Ars Electronica Forum 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZKW0ArCmmk

Face to Facebook installation, "Cyberarts 2011" exhibition, OK Center:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_ars.php


Legal update (new downloadable files):
We have published the entire legal correspondence between our lawyer
and Facebook's legal team so far:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/legal.php
September 5th is our response to the allegations contained in
Facebook's letter of April 7th. Our lawyer answered all their
questions precisely, pointing out Facebook's vulnerability (the
website did not have any anti-scraping protection for years), the
inconsistency of the accusations of criminal violations (we didn't
break security measures) and our right to document our art project on
the website face-to-facebook.net.

The letter ends: "Moreover, given the recent controversy and questions
regarding the legality of Facebook's own "facial recognition" software
("Facebook 'Face Recognition' Feature Draws Privacy Scrutiny",
Bloomberg News, July 8 2011), we are surprised that Facebook would
continue to aggressively pursue a nonprofit conceptual art project
that illustrated the risks of sharing data on social networking
websites and wrapped up long ago."


The social experiment (new documents):
We published the personal reactions that we have received so far. The
anonymous reactions were obtained through contact forms on the
lovely-faces.comand face-to-facebook.net websites. They included
responses from a variety of people; some upset, some confused and some
very enthusiastic. Check them out here:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/social_experiment.php


The Global Mass Media Hack Performance (new downloadable files):
The almost overwhelming press reactions have been archived in the form
of screenshots. The whole archive of over one thousand global media
reviews (still yet to be completed) can be downloaded from:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1527685/face-to-facebook/f2f_press_coverage_screenshots.zip


Exhibitions and lectures:
In the next months we have the following lectures scheduled:
* 28 September, Rewire Conference, lecture, Liverpool - UK
* 13 October, Unsound Festival, lecture, Krakow - Poland
* 5-9 December, Psychoeconomy!, lecture, Seville, Spain

In the last few months Face to Facebook was included in seven
exhibitions and we made ten presentations around Europe and beyond.
Here are some of the installation pictures:

* Origin at Ars Electronica Festival 2011 in Linz:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_ars.php

* REALITYFLOWHACKED at Aksioma Project Space in Ljubljana:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_lub.php

* ENTER | DATAPOLIS at 5th Art|tech Biennale in Prague:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_enter.php

* Chilling Effects at Tetem in Enschede:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_tetem.php

* File PAI Festival 2011 in Sao Paulo:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_file.php

* Data cuerpos y retratos compartidos at De Centro Fundación Telefónica in Lima:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_lima.php

* RESPONSE:ABILITY at Transmediale Festival 2011 in Berlin:
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/face-to-facebook/face-to-facebook_tm.php


Thanks for your attention.
Paolo & Alessandro


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