Smile to Vote – Political Physiognomy Analytics

Against the backdrop of currently trending AI-driven political campaigns, Smile to Vote escalates the latest research findings in the field of psychometrics and merges them with the worry-free large-scale implementation of facial recognition systems in lifestyle products and daily business processes. The conceptual art work, which spans multiple media, portrays the fictitious GovTech startup Smile to Vote and its cutting-edge product of the same name: an ultra-efficient e-voting booth. By means of AI-based facial scanning, the e-voting booth gauges the political conviction of any given person and emulates the process of digitally casting a vote at the upcoming 2019 EU Parliament elections by simply looking into a camera. The work confronts us with the implications for political processes as well as for our understanding of self-determination and freedom of will, once privacy is phased out for good and predictability of our behavior through IT systems becomes ubiquitous.