Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/17/jing-cai-liu.html
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Blimey, once again it turns out that we are in the Philip K Dick Continuum.
Ship a few hundred thousand of these to Hong Kong - stat!
Design fiction, politicized: the wearable face projector
This would have been great when I was dating, back 40 years ago.
Cory,
In an article where you wrote, and I quote
the facial recognition cameras being used by Hong Kong to exact terrible physical retribution upon people who take part in public calls for respect for their human rights.
I don’t see how you can possibly find it “weird” that a Chinese student would need to put out a statement disavowing any political intentions.
Surely you realize that if they even appear to the CCP to be a political activist or a figurehead, their entire family could be at risk of being jailed or disappeared to put pressure on them?
“The street finds its own uses for things” … especially if the things have been designed for use in the street.
I do understand why the designer has to disavow its use in HK, though. The thugs who run China’s security services don’t mess around.
I see why you would find it Dickish. I see your Phil and raise you a William Gibson.
All in all, even yesterday’s dystopia seems strangely mild and livable.
I think I spotted Leo DiCaprio’s face amongst those being projected. What’s the copyright status of a face used in this manner? Fair use remix? Hmmmm.
The video is clearly a design fiction; looks like they used a projector off camera instead of having it come from the unicorn horns.
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No shadow under the nose, indicating that the projector is head on, not above.
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The projection outline does not move in correlation with sideways moves by the horn, despite plenty of uncorrelated movement, perhaps from a handheld human ‘tracker’.
It has more of the scramble suit vibe (A Scanner Darkly) than the mimetic suits of the Panther Moderns (Neuromancer). The mimetic suits were more true camouflage, the scramble suit something that hides the identity.
Even simple black clothing are banned for import to HK these days…
Good luck for sending these!
I cannot be use to protest in Hong kong because… Protest are not allowed anymore due to safety concern.
I just rewatched, and the shadows seem to be okay, angle-wise. The beamer stalk seems to be 20-30cm long. The wobblyness also seems to match movement of forehead muscles being carried over into the headband. There was less movement than would be expected from someone else doing the work, and more movement than post-processing by After Effects would do.
Here’s another one…
Came here to mention the scramble suits, saw that everyone beat me to it. I’ll go ahead and link to a video clip from A Scanner Darkly, because rotoscoping is cool.
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