Fighting the "coded gaze"

When I was a master's student at MIT, I worked on a number of different art projects that used facial analysis technology. One in particular--called The Aspire Mirror-- would detect my face in a mirror and then display a reflection of something different, based on what inspired me or what I wanted to empathize with. As I was working on it, I realized that the software I was using had a hard time detecting my face. But after I made one adjustment, the software no longer struggled: I put on a white mask. This disheartening moment brought to mind Franz Fanon's book Black Skin White Masks, which interrogates the complexities of changing oneself--putting on a mask to fit the norms or expectations of a dominant culture.