!brute_force

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic, the !brute_force project focuses on the future of market-driven diagnostic wearables and AI-based health monitoring technologies. A human and dog performer climb through an installation of platforms and empty spaces. Both wear Electrocardiograph ECG/EKG diagnostic wearables, used for the medical monitoring of chronic heart and respiratory conditions. These are gathered within a Neural Network, whose goal is to synchronize the heartbeat of the human with that of the dog. On the one hand, the installation represents the canine and human bodies under surveillance capitalism, as abstractions within total corporate knowledge and control of bodily function. On the other, the installation also suggests paths of resistance, by imagining the coexistence of the two species in a state of joint physical activity. By forging alliances between the human and her companion species, reclaiming agency emanates through corpo-reality that awakens the necessity to be actively involved in decision making around the ethical implications of monitoring technology. Such power is especially imperative for civil society in the zeitgeist of political and vending implications that bring us to erosion of trust in the ever more developing global context of disaster capitalism.