Facial Recognition
Among the Wende Museum’s special collections, the
personal archive of Peter Bochmann dramatically stands out. Bochmann, the head
of the passport division for border guards on the east side of Berlin’s
“Checkpoint Charlie,” developed a system for facial recognition that was
showcased at the border crossing in early November 1989, just days before the
Berlin Wall came down. This exhibition presents Bochmann’s sketches, drawings,
and portrait photos used for personal identification. Moreover, it investigates
the history of facial recognition methods and their various applications since
the late eighteenth century, focusing on (pseudo-)scientists like Johann Kaspar
Lavater, Cesare Lombroso, Francis Galton, and Alphonse Bertillon. Finally, the exhibition addresses the topicality of facial recognition
in our digital age and presents art projects by internationally
acclaimed artists Zach Blas, Nancy Burson, Kathleen
McDermott, and Leo Selvaggio, who with their work critically comment on
the technology and its far-reaching consequences.