Article // “Abstraction, expropriation, anticipation: Note généalogique sur les visions machiniques de la gestualité”

In November 2018, the article “Abstraction, expropriation, anticipation: Note généalogique sur les visions machiniques de la gestualité” written by Fernanda Bruno, Mauricio Lissovsky and Icaro Ferraz Vidal Júnior was published in the journal Réseaux n. 211, “Machines prédictives”.

Abstract: The article traces a genealogy of automatic vision of gestuality, from the technical reproducibility of images, to contemporary predictive machines. The text is organized into three parts. The first part describes how the technical reproducibility of images – both photographic and cinematographic – came to be used to replicate gestures, to abstract them and to expropriate them in several fields (security and self-defence, science, art and industry). The second part shows that the matrix of the contemporary technical model, aimed at predicting behaviour, is already partially defined by cybernetics. Finally, the last part analyses computer-assisted vision devices and smart cameras using the automated detection of gestures and movements to predict and control driving. This genealogical outline highlights two vectors of transformation. The first is a gradual abstraction and expropriation of gestures through technical imaging. The second is a relative erasure of identity and subjectivity when the predictive bias of technical imaging is reinforced. Moving away from the identification paradigm that prevails in modernity, particularly in the field of security and surveillance, strengthens the predictive dimension.

Keywords: Gesture recognition; Vision Machines; Technical Imaging; Algorithmic prediction; Computer vision.

The full article in French is available at: https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_RES_211_0105–abstraction-expropriation-anticipation.htm