New York-based artist and programmer Aarati Akkapeddi creates works that are often deeply personal and informed by data.
With her work titled Encoding (2018), Akkapeddi expounds upon the concept of a photo album by juxtaposing family photographs with biometric data.
“In using family photographs in this project as my base data material, I am to reference those established rituals of affirming one’s identity, and converge them with the use of biometric data as verification for identity,” explained Akkapeddi.
Upon opening the tome, there is an image of Akkapeddi’s family member. The next page features a portrait rendering of a face “landmark” found by algorithm. The ensuing page is filled with facial recognition data, followed by a contour plot.
The collection of visuals made from Akkapeddi’s family questions how identity is formed and understood, and how it can be reduced and reinterpreted.
“In extracting biometrics from my family photos, in a futile way, I seek some kind of static truth in them,” said Akkapeddi. “I dilute them, stripping them of their emotional and cultural contexts, down to their mathematized value. And in aesthetically reinterpreting this data, I highlight biometric data collection as not only a reductive process but perhaps a productive process in its creation of new externalized, alternative representations of identity.”
“Through creating this multilayered archive of family photos, facial recognition data, and data visualizations, I explore the aesthetic, emotional, and personal relationships between these three different methodologies of situating, preserving, and affirming identity,” added Akkapeddi.
To learn more, click the link below.
