Installation View
Seat Belt Necropolitics
︎︎︎
Interactive Installation
The ‘Algorithm’
Seatbelt Necropolitics Installation
Seatbelt Necropolitics Installation
Design Academy Eindhoven
MA Contextual Design
October - December 2021
MA Contextual Design
October - December 2021
It is predicted that by 2050 autonomous vehicles could theoretically meet the entire transportation needs of the world. Furthermore, it is likely that self-driving cars could save 10 million lives globally per decade—but why does the prospect of an autonomous vehicle still seem so terrifying? In the inevitable event of a collision, what kind of person is the vehicle programmed to save and how is this decision made?
In Seat Belt Necropolitics, the seatbelt is recontextualised as an algorithm in a self-driving car future. As the safety of car occupants is only predicted to increase, it is necessary to look at how this impacts the safety of pedestrians, those who are outside of the car.
How does a person’s societal status (wealth, gender, race, age, health, etc) influence whether the autonomous vehicle continues along its original trajectory, killing the pedestrian, or whether it causes the car to change course, saving the pedestrian’s life. By using facial recognition technologies in which it will be immediately recognizable both who is inside the car and who is outside, the algorithm is programmed to save whoever is deemed as more ‘valuable’ to society judging by the above characteristics. At the highest level, the algorithm is trying to save lives, but in the inevitable instance in which someone must die—what will this decision be based on?
Seat Belt Necropolitics consists of an interactive installation in which two people compete against each other answering a series of arbitrary questions to find out who is a more ‘productive’ member of the community that the two exist within. My project is a model that can be tailored to any community, but for the purposes of the project and those interacting with it, the questions relate directly to life at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), where the project was produced. By positioning DAE as the main stakeholder with a vested interest in keeping certain members of the school alive, my project aims to question who is responsible for programming these cars? And whose interests do they have in mind?
In Seat Belt Necropolitics, the seatbelt is recontextualised as an algorithm in a self-driving car future. As the safety of car occupants is only predicted to increase, it is necessary to look at how this impacts the safety of pedestrians, those who are outside of the car.
How does a person’s societal status (wealth, gender, race, age, health, etc) influence whether the autonomous vehicle continues along its original trajectory, killing the pedestrian, or whether it causes the car to change course, saving the pedestrian’s life. By using facial recognition technologies in which it will be immediately recognizable both who is inside the car and who is outside, the algorithm is programmed to save whoever is deemed as more ‘valuable’ to society judging by the above characteristics. At the highest level, the algorithm is trying to save lives, but in the inevitable instance in which someone must die—what will this decision be based on?
Seat Belt Necropolitics consists of an interactive installation in which two people compete against each other answering a series of arbitrary questions to find out who is a more ‘productive’ member of the community that the two exist within. My project is a model that can be tailored to any community, but for the purposes of the project and those interacting with it, the questions relate directly to life at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), where the project was produced. By positioning DAE as the main stakeholder with a vested interest in keeping certain members of the school alive, my project aims to question who is responsible for programming these cars? And whose interests do they have in mind?