Page 254 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015254Examples of the implementation of facial recognition technology are starting to be seenin culture institutions. The fact is that many technology companies are carrying out research in this field. The interest lies in finding out in as great as possible detail users’ emotional reactions to gain a better understanding and interpret their tastes and interests.For example, the Detector Shore97 facial recognition app developed by research scientists of the Fraunhofer Technological Institute in Germany can recognise the basic emotions of people who look through Google Glass thanks to facial recognition technology and can even tell the person’s age almost exactly.According to its creators, the application has a 94.3% accuracy rate in facial recognition of sex and emotions. This percentage indicates that it finds it surprisingly easy to ascertain whether somebody is pleased, happy, surprised, sadand so forth. To achieve such a high rate, the technology is supported by a database of more than 10,000 faces that provide a standard for the facial representation of emotions.It is not difficult to find similar research proj- ects, though they are rarer in cultural entities. Facial recognition technology can be used to monitor how to interact, as we have seen in the case of the ISIS group’s experiment on virtual recreations, specifically that of the Palacio de Pedro I, in the Real Alcázar in Seville.The Deutsches Museum of Munich,98 one of the biggest science and technology museums in the world, launched an innovative initiative to demonstrate precisely the ability of current facialrecognition technology to read moods, though more as a fun experience than as a tool for mea- suring. Visitors simply position their face in front of a camera and see it digitally displayed on a large screen with the results on their age and mood.It is actually a digital game with a tool whose commercial application provides information to brands and advertising agents on the people who view their advertisements and how they react to them. In other words, its practical usage is also directed at measuring and analysing tastes and emotions.The Rijksmuseum has launched the Rijks Emoticons project99 in collaboration with four young students of Hyper Island, as part of the Digital Data Strategy programme. The aim of this initiative is to attract teenagers, as many studies report a decline in the number of visitors in this age range; it is therefore necessary to come up with projects that connect history with these people’s everyday life – in which technology plays a major role. The idea is thus to entice them by designing a site using facial recognition technolo- gy as a link between teenagers and the art history housed in the rooms of the famous museum.It works simply. All users have to do is visit the website and take a photograph of themselves, and the programme will establish connections with the museum’s works using data such as age, sex or facial expression. The result will be the work that most resembles the photograph supplied by the user.This project, devised as a game, establishes a perfect link between technology, teenagers and museum content and encourages these youngFocus 2015. Museums and New Technologies