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The Irresistible Powers of Silent Talking
Andrius Arutiunian
PYLON is pleased to present the multi-media installation "The Irresistible Powers of Silent Talking" by artist and composer Andrius Arutiunian at HYBRID Box.
„The Irresistible Powers of Silent Talking“ (2021) investigates automated deception recognition systems and their use in border surveillance. It is based on the iBorderCtrl algorithm which was developed to scan the facial micro-expressions of migrants entering the EU. After a person has first been interviewed by the virtual avatar, iBorderCtrl determines the level of their veracity using an undisclosed set of criteria. Essentially, it makes decisions based on algorithmic assumptions about truth or deceit.
Andrius Arutiunian (b.1991) is an Armenian-Lithuanian artist and composer based in the Netherlands. Trained as a composer, Arutiunian studied at the Royal Conservatory The Hague. Arutiunian works with hybrid forms of sound through installations, film, sculpture and performances.
Sonic dissent, alternate modes of political and musical organisation, and playful investigation of esoteric and vernacular histories form Arutiunian’s most recent works. Through aural cosmologies, non-western tunings and musical systems, as well as extensive studies of resonance and speculative instruments, the artist works with sound as a world-ordering method. Using hypnotic and enigmatic forms, Arutiunian’s works often question the notion of musical and political attunement.
In 2022 Andrius Arutiunian represented Armenia at the 59th Venice Art Biennale with a solo show entitled Gharīb. Other recent solo shows include Counterfates (Meduza Vilnius, 2023) Diaphonics (Centrala Birmingham, 2023), and Incantations (CTM and silent green, Berlin, 2021).
Selected group shows and performances include the 14th Shanghai Biennale, Le Fresnoy and Centre Pompidou (Tourcoing), the 14th Kaunas Biennial, M HKA (Antwerp), Stroom (The Hague), Stedelijk (Amsterdam), Survival Kit 13 (Riga), documenta 14 Parliament of Bodies (Kassel), Radicants and Slavs and Tatars’ Pickle Bar (Paris), gb agency (Paris), FACT (Liverpool), Rewire Festival (The Hague), and Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius).
Duration of the installation: October 5 - November 5, 2023. Open one hour before and after the events in the Festspielhaus.
HYBRID BOX Modular Gallery
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 56
01109 Dresden
This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency program at FACT Liverpool, co-funded by the European Union. This presentation was co-funded by KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis.
The exhibition is presented by PYLON and is kindly supported by Landeshauptstadt Dresden - Amt für Kultur und Denkmalschutz and Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen.
Gefördert durch die Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen. Diese Maßnahme wird mitfinanziert durch Steuermittel auf der Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes.
'The Irresistible Powers of Silent Talking' (2021) is an installation investigating border violence through AI-powered technologies. It is based on a notorious iBorderCtrl software – developed together with border patrols of Spain, Greece and UK, the system claimed to be an automated deception recognition algorithm. Commissioned and funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program, the algorithm was supposed to scan the facial micro-expressions of migrants entering the EU.
The migrant would be asked to answer a set of innocuous questions to a white-male police officer in the form of a digital avatar. The avatar, designed to look menacing and authoritative, would be programmed to speak in Standard British English and would not react in any interactive way with the person entering the border. During the interview, the algorithm would then make a decision of veracity – essentially deciding whether the person has been “lying” or not – using an undisclosed set of criteria. The iBorderCtrl hasn’t published these criteria in any public form and maintains them as their commercial secret. Essentially, it makes a coded decision based on the algorithmic assumptions about truth or deceit.
However, through recent findings we now know that it produces a most of its decisions using reductive and at best, speculative, methods. As an example of such reductive approach, the iBorderCtrl team trained their algorithm on 32 hired actors, who played out simulated deceptive or truthful situations in the lab setting. Aside from theatre of Brechtian proportions entering into decision making of refugees and migrants lives, the algorithm itself is based on an out-dated notion of what we can render as “truth”.*
In The Irresistible Powers of Silent Talking, this system is recreated and put under duress itself. In the installation, the iBorderCtrl police-man avatar is rendered voiceless and is exposed to the viewer. The avatar’s face is scanned for expressions of deceit or truth, using the same principles behind the iBorderCtrl. The installation maps the supposed deviations in veracity and renders them audible through sound. But the results are murky at best, the scans of policeman producing an ambiguous and undetermined sonic results. Just like in the border-crossings, the effect is simply that of a state of violence.
This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency program at FACT Liverpool, co-funded by the European Union. This presentation was co-funded by KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis.
First commissioned by the FACT Liverpool, EMARE/EMAP, it was also made with the support of Hertz Lab and ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, The Creative Industries Fund NL, and Stroom Den Haag.