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Arts & Communication Computer vision in tactical AI art

By underlining the misalignment between the
myths about digital technologies and their actual
implementation, they undermine positivist worldviews
that equate quantification and calculation with objective
truth, challenge the authority of the technocratic elite,
and establish alternative narratives to corporate techno-
solutionism. They nourish the necessary macro-level
7,90
skepticism about pervasive technologies, such as AI,
informed by their assessment from broader historical,
economic, and social perspectives. While other tactical
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(AI) art practices make equivalent critical points, the
Figure 9. Jennifer Gradecki and Derek Curry, Boogaloo Bias (2021). cognitive power of vision amplifies their persuasiveness in
Screenshot of Boogaloo Bias facial recognition system analyzing news CV-related works.
footage of an anti-gun control protest. Courtesy of the artists
At the same time, CV-related critical artworks’
limited capabilities for making palpable social changes
beyond academic or popular discourse represent a larger
set of conceptual and methodological challenges across
tactical AI art, tactical media art, and computational
art.
3.1. Challenges
Tactical AI art continues computational art’s historical
tendency toward technocentrism, initially imposed by
high cognitive demands of computer technology, which
tacitly conflates artmaking with the skillful handling
of creative devices and often incentivizes artists toward
technical virtuosity devoid of critical distance or playful
irreverence. 92,93 This techno-fetishist mentality often
Figure 10. Sebastian Schmieg, Decisive Mirror (2019). Installation view
photograph. Courtesy of the artist reinforces a naïve lack of understanding that the poetic
sense of production techniques in the arts is fundamentally
power vectors of corporate/state AI and the poetic flavors defined by conceptual thinking and meaningful
of artistic interventions that criticize them. contextualization.
As in computational art, expressive similarities are
3. Discussion frequent in tactical AI art. While some artworks leverage the
Critical art practices with CV are a valuable contribution to well-sanctioned referencing of other artworks as an asset,
AI art. They reveal a range of AI’s CV-related issues, such as in cases where obvious or easily discoverable similarities
the imposed normalization of behavior and the influence of remain unacknowledged, they become liabilities that raise
biometric profiling on social media, democratic processes, concerns about their creators’ art-historical literacy or
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political convictions, self-determination, and privacy. professional ethics. Similar to tactical media art, the actual
They highlight the roles of AI-powered surveillance in extent and longer-term social benefits of many works (even
questionable forms of societal control, such as manipulating those initially recognized for making palpable changes)
public presence, self-perception, labor maximization, turn out to be debatable or have been contested. Pertinent
and profit extraction. By emphasizing the differences and well-conceived critical ideas are sometimes rendered
between computer and human vision, these practices as unengaging, vague, ineffective, or counter-effective
show how the deployment of automation in situations works, represented in overly didactic setups, or supported
where human intuition and inference are norms changes by inflated theoretical rhetoric. 95,96 Tactical AI artworks are
the epistemological and ethical foundations for decision- largely consumed and praised by academic communities
making. They stress that CV is part of a higher algorithmic prone to developing echo chambers, while their real-world
order riddled with technical imperfections, inadequacies critical viability requires unbiased assessment. The general
of statistical modeling and prediction, human biases and audience, which is supposed to be central to tactical art,
prejudices, and conflicting economic and political interests. can easily recognize the academization of tactical values or

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 11 doi: 10.36922/ac.2282