is composed of French police officers’ faces. Paolo Cirio collected 1000 public images of police in photos taken during protests in France and processed them with Facial Recognition software. Cirio then created an online platform with a database of the resulting 4000 faces of police officers to crowdsource their identification by name. Moreover, Cirio printed the officers’ headshots as street art posters and posted them throughout Paris to expose them also in the public space.
commented on the potential uses and misuses of Facial Recognition and Artificial Intelligence by questioning the asymmetry of power at play. The lack of privacy regulations of such technology eventually turned against the same authorities that urge the use of it. This provocation triggered the reactions of the Interior Minister of France and the police unions which forced censorship of the artwork, despite it being celebrated by the French citizens and the international press. Initially, as an activist, Cirio introduced a campaign to ban Facial Recognition technology in all of Europe. In 2021 for his campaign
, Paolo Cirio delivered a package to various European institutions containing a legal complaint with his research and petition with over 50000 signatures supporting a ban on Facial Recognition in Europe. The European Commission replied to Cirio's complaint by acknowledging the need to legally restrict the use of Artificial Intelligence.
Awards
Artwork Acquisition, KADIST Collection, 2021, Paris - France
Honorary Mention, AI & Life Art, Prix Ars Electronica, 2021, Linz - Austria
Selected shows and presentations history
Paris Photo, exhibition at Nome gallery booth, 2023, Paris - France
Contre-enquêtes, lecture at the Gaité Lyrique, 2023, Paris - France
Faces in the Crowd, keynote lecture at Panthéon-Assas University, 2023, Paris - France
Unrestricted Society, exhibition at Contemporary Culture Lab, 2022, Taipei - Taiwan
Revolution 52, exhibition at the L'Unique Caen, 2022, Marseille - France
A.I. Ethiques et Esthetiques, workshop at École Lethica, 2022, Strasbourg - France
Arte Fiera Bologna, exhibition at Giorgio Persano booth, 2022, Bologna - Italy
Monitoring Control, solo show at Fondazione Arti Visive, 2021, Modena - Italy
PhEST festival, exhibition at the Palazzo Palmieri, 2021, Monopoli - Italy
Reasonable Doubt, exhibition at V2 Unstable Media, 2021, Rotterdam - Netherlands
Face Control, exhibition at Colectania Foto Colectania, 2021, Barcelona - Spain
Private, exhibition at Arco Art Fair with NOME gallery, 2021, Madrid - Spain
AI & Life Art, exhibition and lectures at Ars Electronica, 2021, Linz - Austria
Picture Authority, lecture at Syndicat Potentiel, 2021, Strasbourg - France
Convergence of AI Ethics, lecture at La Gaîté Lyrique, 2021, Paris - France
Panorama 22 exhibition at Le Fresnoy, 2020, (Censored), Tourcoing - France
Cybernetics of the Poor, exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien, 2020, Vienna - Austria
Artissima Unplugged, solo show at GAM Musuem, 2020, Turin - Italy
Plan B, exhibition at NOME Gallery, 2020, Berlin - Germany
