facebook, an interactive facial recognition book that narrates your story

new york-based interactive art director lim si ping (a.k.a. handson) has designed ‘facebook’, a truly high-tech installation. as you browse through the interactive book for the first time, the camera uses facial recognition to pair your profile with data tracked through search engines. the book draws a back-end algorithm and fills in the blank of the narrative with your name, age, gender, location, and birth date. as the story unfolds with each turn of a page, you realize that this is a story about you.

the first web camera tracks the user flipping the book by using nyar4psg markers. the second web camera traces their face, and with facial recognition, pulls their data pre-stored and projects it into the book – injecting the user into the narrative plot. each person who interacts with the book has their own unique narrative. the storyline is influenced based on their personal data — what their names are, their age, occupation, and location they are based in.

converting recognition API data on processing, two sketches had to be run to first trace the user’s face profile, followed by projecting their data into the narrative plot. client to server communication was used on the two processing sketches.

project info:

name: facebook

designer: lim si ping (handson)

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: maria erman | designboom