SVEN - Surveillance Video Entertainment Network
aka "AI to the People"

by Amy Alexander, Jesse Gilbert, Wojciech Kosma, Vincent Rabaud, Nikhil Rasiwasia

The project that asks the question: If computer vision technology can be used to detect when you look like a terrorist, criminal, or other "undesirable" - why not when you look like a rock star?

SVEN (Surveillance Video Entertainment Network) is a system comprised of a camera, monitor, and two computers that can be set up in public places - especially in situations where a CCTV monitor might be expected. The software consists of a custom computer vision application that tracks pedestrians and detects their characteristics, and a real-time video processing application that receives this information and uses it to generate music-video like visuals from the live camera feed. The resulting video and audio are displayed on a monitor in the public space, interrupting the standard security camera type display each time a potential rock star is detected. The idea is to humorously examine and demystify concerns about surveillance and computer systems not in terms of being watched, but in terms of how the watching is being done - and how else it might be done if other people were at the wheel.