{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Sam Lavigne","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/","description":"Recent content on Sam Lavigne","generator":"Hugo -- gohugo.io","language":"en-us","lastBuildDate":"Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:50:13 -0500","item":[{"title":"SLOW LLM","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/slow-llm\/","pubDate":"Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/slow-llm\/","description":"SLOW LLM is a browser extension and DNS service that makes LLMs appear to run very slowly."},{"title":"Estimating Carbon Emissions From Income","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/carbon-calculations\/","pubDate":"Thu, 06 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/carbon-calculations\/","description":"Unconventional Carbon Credits For the last several years I’ve been working on a project with Tega Brain to develop a series of “unconventional” carbon offsets centered around instances of industrial sabotage and direct action. The carbon credit industry is notoriously awash in bullshit, but if we were to take its premises seriously, the question arises: why do some activities get to “count” as beneficial and monetizable, but others do not? The idea of the Offset project, in short, is that when activists directly intervene in carbon flows they create carbon benefits that can be calculated and even financialized through mechanisms invented by the carbon offsetting industry itself."},{"title":"Offset","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/offset\/","pubDate":"Tue, 16 Sep 2025 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/offset\/","description":"Offset is a carbon registry and online store selling high-quality premium carbon credits generated from cases of direct action and industrial sabotage. Credits are represented by unique certificates printed in archival ink on photo rag, and the proceeds from each sale are donated directly back to the activists responsible for each direct action. We analyze and quantify each case for its carbon benefit using methods taken directly from the carbon accounting industry."},{"title":"Xeno Computer 0.1: Labor","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/xenocomputing\/","pubDate":"Sat, 16 Aug 2025 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/xenocomputing\/","description":"A system that creates a new labor distribution for the US. The system is composed of three random digit generators made of air pumps and colored balls, a cluster of raspberry pi computers, and a dashboard that displays the status of the system and the locations of labor assignments. Random numbers generated by the system are used to select candidates and job assignments from a pool of 30 million Americans."},{"title":"Coppelg\u00e4nger","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/coppelganger\/","pubDate":"Mon, 29 Jul 2024 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/coppelganger\/","description":"A facial recognition system built on ~10,000 images of publicly available images of the NYPD. Locate the cop deep within yourself.\nRead more about the project here: https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/exploring-cop-data\nOr visit it at: https:\/\/coppelganger.lav.io"},{"title":"Exploring Cop Data","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/exploring-cop-data\/","pubDate":"Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/exploring-cop-data\/","description":"I present Coppelg\u00e4nger: a tool that shows you what NYPD cop a machine learning model thinks you most resemble. Find the cop lurking deep inside yourself by visiting coppelganger.lav.io, or read on for a description of my process.\nFacial recognition systems are widespread, despite the growing body of work on the real and potential abuse of these systems (not to mention their general creep factor). These systems are typically deployed by government agencies, the police, and private companies, but basic facial recognition software is freely available to anyone who wishes to use it."},{"title":"The First Debate","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/the-first-debate\/","pubDate":"Fri, 28 Jun 2024 10:38:14 +0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/the-first-debate\/","description":"Silences (between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds long) in the first presidential debate of 2024."},{"title":"Infinite Video Showcase","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/infinite-video-showcase\/","pubDate":"Fri, 22 Dec 2023 14:51:12 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/infinite-video-showcase\/","description":"I recently led a ten-week class at the School for Poetic Computation called Infinite Video, along with Jonathan Gray and Ilona Brand.\nIn the course we used the command-line tools, Python libraries like MoviePy, VidPy, and Videogrep, and various machine learning models to explore video archives, thinking through the possibilities (and limitations) of analyzing, filtering, sorting, editing, and composing video with code.\nThe full syllabus, readings and example code are available on GitHub."},{"title":"Rotterdam Risk Scores","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/rotterdam-risk-score\/","pubDate":"Wed, 20 Dec 2023 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/rotterdam-risk-score\/","description":"Between 2017 and 2021 the city of Rotterdam used an automated system to assign a risk score for welfare recipients. The scores were meant to act as an indicator of potential fraudulent activity, and those who received the highest or “riskiest” scores were subject to investigations.\nLighthouse Reports, in collaboration with WIRED, used freedom of information laws to gain access to the code, training data, and machine learning model that powers the system."},{"title":"FFmpeg Explorer","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/ffmpeg-explorer\/","pubDate":"Sun, 03 Sep 2023 16:51:12 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/ffmpeg-explorer\/","description":"In a fit of madness I have made a web-based GUI for FFmpeg: FFmpeg Explorer.\nFFmpeg Explorer\nI’m teaching a class at School for Poetic Computation this fall called Infinite Video. The goal of the class is to explore video archives with code, and I had planned to do a section on FFmpeg, the notoriously powerful and obtuse command-line media manipulator. So, I thought, what if I just made a little something to help students figure out how to use FFmpeg outside the command line – a friendlier way to introduce the tool to beginners."},{"title":"Reducing 'Avatar 2: Way of the Water' to One Dimension","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/avatar-2-way-of-the-water-in-1d\/","pubDate":"Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/avatar-2-way-of-the-water-in-1d\/","description":"Last night, my shared studio\/art space LARPA held the inaugural screening of what we hope will become a regular event: High Concept Low Effort Cinema.\nFor our first ever production, Claire Hentschker and I attempted to reduce the overly-dimensional film “Avatar 2: Way of the Water” into a single dimension. Here are the results (turn subtitles on for the complete experience):\nHad to use Vimeo because YouTube insta-blocked it\nHow to reduce a film into a single dimension What does it mean to reduce a film to a single dimensions?"},{"title":"Rotterdam Risk Scores","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/rotterdam-risk-scores\/","pubDate":"Thu, 29 Jun 2023 21:13:11 +1100","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/rotterdam-risk-scores\/","description":"Between 2017 and 2021 the city of Rotterdam used an automated system to assign a risk score for welfare recipients. The scores were meant to act as an indicator of potential fraudulent activity, and those who received the highest or “riskiest” scores were subject to investigations.\nLighthouse Reports, in collaboration with WIRED, used freedom of information laws to gain access to the code, training data, and machine learning model that powers the system."},{"title":"Cold Call: Time Theft as Avoided Emissions","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/cold-call\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Apr 2023 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/cold-call\/","description":"“Cold Call: Time Theft as Avoided Emissions” is an unconventional carbon offsetting scheme that draws on strategies of worker sabotage and applies them in the context of high emission companies in the fossil fuel industry. Time theft is a strategy to deliberately slow productivity, where workers waste time and are therefore paid for periods of idleness. For example, fake sick days, sleeping on the job, extended lunch breaks, or engaging in non-work related activities like social media or unrelated phone calls."},{"title":"The Zooms","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-zooms\/","pubDate":"Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:04:41 +1100","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-zooms\/","description":"An extraction of every single zooming shot from 600 hours of leaked police helicopter surveillance footage.\nRead more about the work here"},{"title":"OBIT","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/oil-obit\/","pubDate":"Tue, 08 Nov 2022 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/oil-obit\/","description":"Drawing from semi-public databases containing the dates drilling began and the dates wells were abandoned and plugged, OBIT unscrolls the birth and death of all abandoned oil wells in the U.S. The “finality” of the work–a public obituary–coincides with the flood of information each unit measures, or 305,065 total dead wells. An online version of the work streams a simulcast with the gallery projection.\nOil & Gas Journal, founded in 1902, is the petroleum industry’s leading worldwide publication."},{"title":"Screenshot Dump November 2022","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/screenshot-dump-nov-2022\/","pubDate":"Sat, 05 Nov 2022 16:53:44 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/screenshot-dump-nov-2022\/","description":{"0":" "}},{"title":"Extracting Zooming Shots From 600 hours of Police Helicopter Surveillance Footage","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/the-zooms\/","pubDate":"Mon, 24 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/the-zooms\/","description":"The Zooms In November of 2021, an anonymous source leaked 600 hours of police aerial surveillance footage to the non-profit transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets.\nThe videos are mostly from police helicopters in Dallas, Texas, and the total size of the collection comes to around 1.9 terabytes.\nWhen I heard about the leak I purchased a large external hard drive and got to downloading. By chance this was the first video I looked at."},{"title":"Fragile States","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/fragile-states\/","pubDate":"Wed, 05 Oct 2022 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/fragile-states\/","description":"Fragile States is an archive of interviews with former political prisoners who have been incarcerated for climate activism. It is an ongoing project to celebrate and financially support those who have faced retaliatory state violence for engaging in direct action.\nFragile States is a collaboration with Tega Brain, supported by NYU’s “This is not a Drill” initiative."},{"title":"Real Deepfakes and Fake Deepfakes","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/deep-fakes-real-deeps-fake-reals\/","pubDate":"Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/deep-fakes-real-deeps-fake-reals\/","description":"This June, I launched the Austin Police Department Decruitment Initiative with my collaborator Andie Flores.\nThe goal of APD Decruitment is simple: we aim to convince members for the Austin Police Department to quit their jobs, and to discourage new recuits from joining.\nTo further this goal we’ve partnered with some local Austin businesses who have agreed to provide discounts to cops who can demonstrate they’ve quit their jobs, a kind of rewards program for quitters."},{"title":"Videogrep and Spacy","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/videogrep-and-spacy\/","pubDate":"Fri, 10 Jun 2022 12:17:08 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/videogrep-and-spacy\/","description":"Creating Supercuts with Pattern Matching In previous versions of Videogrep I included the pattern library, which, at the time (2015), was my preferred tool for natural language processing tasks. Integrating pattern allowed Videogrep to create supercuts based on grammatical patterns.\nIn an attempt to simplify things, I no longer include pattern with Videogrep. And generally speaking I’ve moved on from pattern altogether, to the more robust spaCy, an “industrial-strength” natural language processing library which is also a pleasure to use."},{"title":"Screenshot Dump May 2022","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/screenshot-dump-may-2022\/","pubDate":"Mon, 30 May 2022 16:53:44 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/screenshot-dump-may-2022\/","description":{"0":" "}},{"title":"What Presidents Say After Shootings","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/what-presidents-say-after-shootings\/","pubDate":"Thu, 26 May 2022 20:38:14 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/what-presidents-say-after-shootings\/","description":"Thoughts, prayers… Sources Robb Elementary School shooting - 2022\nBuffalo shooting 2022\nBoulder shooting 2021\nEl Paso Walmart shooting - 2019\nVirginia Beach shooting - 2019\nThousand Oaks shooting - 2018\nPittsburgh synagogue shooting - 2018\nSanta Fe High School shooting - 2018\nStoneman Douglas High School shooting - 2018\nSutherland Springs church shooting - 2017\nLas Vegas shooting - 2017\nOrlando nightclub shooting - 2016\nSandy Hook Elementary School shooting - 2012"},{"title":"Videogrep Tutorial","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/videogrep-tutorial\/","pubDate":"Sat, 21 May 2022 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/notes\/videogrep-tutorial\/","description":"How to Make Automatic Supercuts I’ve been working on some long-needed updates to Videogrep, my command-line tool that automatically generates supercuts. These updates were motivated in part by a 10 week class I recently developed and taught at the School for Poetic Computation called Scrapism (web-scraping-as-art). The class includes a section on automatically manipulating video, and I\u2019ll also be teaching this material this June, in a 3-hour workshop that is specifically about video and the command line at Sonic Acts."},{"title":"APD Decruitment","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/apd-decruitment\/","pubDate":"Tue, 01 Feb 2022 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/apd-decruitment\/","description":"The APD Decruitment Initiative is a multi-part public service campaign that aims to prevent potential recruits from joining the Austin Police Department, and to convince existing police officers to quit their jobs.\nA collaboration with Andie Flores, commissioned by the “It’s Not Fair” for FuseBox Festival, and presented by MoHA. Video staring Rudy Giuliani, David Clarke, Joe Arpaio, and Mark Lamb. Music by Devin Curry.\nRead more about the process of making the work here."},{"title":"The Capitalist Gene","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/capitalist-gene\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Jan 2022 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/capitalist-gene\/","description":"A citizen science initiative to isolate capitalism on a genetic level.\nSupported by the Goethe Institut, as part of the Jemand Society, as well as Unlisted Projects, The Museum of Human Achievement and the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department."},{"title":"Perfect Sleep","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/perfect-sleep\/","pubDate":"Fri, 01 Oct 2021 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/perfect-sleep\/","description":"Perfect Sleep investigates sleep and dreaming as a potential climate engineering technology. By inviting participants to experiment with their own sleep cycles, the work explores how lack of sleep and climate change are both products of the same extractivist capitalist system where regeneration, rest and natural limits go unvalued.\nThe work is realized in two parts: as a smart phone app and an installation.\nThe app, titled The Perfect Sleep App, allows users to adjust their sleep schedule, slowly increasing their sleep time over the course of three years until they achieve a state of \u2018total sleep\u2019."},{"title":"Unwhorl","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/unwhorl\/","pubDate":"Wed, 01 Sep 2021 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/unwhorl\/","description":"A networked, touch-based interface for snails to create music. Created with Mari Bastashevski.\nFollow the snails on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok."},{"title":"Synthetic Messenger","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/synthetic-messenger\/","pubDate":"Fri, 04 Jun 2021 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/synthetic-messenger\/","description":"Synthetic Messenger was a botnet performance that attempted to artificially inflate the value of climate news. Every day the system searched the internet for news articles covering climate change. Then 100 bots visited each article and clicked on every ad they could find.\nThe performance ran for two weeks, and took place inside of a Zoom call that was available to the public.\nSynthetic Messenger was made in collaboration with Tega Brain and was supported by the Goethe-Institut’s New Nature Program, and by the 2021 STRP Festival."},{"title":"Zoom Escaper","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/zoom-escaper\/","pubDate":"Sun, 14 Mar 2021 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/zoom-escaper\/","description":"Zoom Escaper is a tool to help you escape Zoom meetings and other videoconferencing scenarios. It allows you to self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others.\nMade for the Welcome to My Homepage Digital Artist Residency at the Museum of Human Acheivement."},{"title":"Zoom Deleter","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/zoom-deleter\/","pubDate":"Thu, 04 Mar 2021 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/zoom-deleter\/","description":"Zoom Deleter is a small program that runs in your menu bar or system tray. It continually checks for the presence of Zoom on your computer, and if found, immediately deletes it.\nMade for the Welcome to My Homepage Digital Artist Residency at the Museum of Human Acheivement."},{"title":"45 Library","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/45library\/","pubDate":"Sun, 20 Sep 2020 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/45library\/","description":"Speculative proposal for the 45th presidential library: a neoclassical structure guarded by all ~700,000 cops in the US.\nCommissioned by 45 Library."},{"title":"Sacrifice Zone","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/endicott\/","pubDate":"Thu, 27 Aug 2020 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/endicott\/","description":"Tega Brain and I discuss data, AI, and IBM\u2019s toxic legacies with filmmaker Hannah Jayanti while exploring the abandoned IBM Country Club in Endicott, New York. IBM began its operations in Endicott in 1911, and opened its country club in the 1930s amidst the company’s expanding manufacture of punch card and accounting machines: data technologies that would go on to be used by Hitler’s Third Reich. The country club is preemptive of the modern day “tech campus” with swimming pools, tennis courts and luxurious recreational facilities for employees and their families."},{"title":"No Fly Free Zone","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/no-fly-free-zone\/","pubDate":"Thu, 30 Apr 2020 13:48:26 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/no-fly-free-zone\/","description":"No Fly Free Zone is an automated live broadcast of the individual nation state travel restrictions as published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The broadcast is continuous and is updated perennially to incorporate changes as they become available on the IATA website.\nThis work is a collaboration with Mari Bastashevski.\nFrom the project website:\n“Every day IATA (International Air Transport Association) publishes an updated set of rules from member states defining who is and isn\u2019t permitted to enter the respective countries under various Covid-19 lockdown regimes."},{"title":"Fulfillment Bins","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/fulfillment-bins\/","pubDate":"Mon, 20 Apr 2020 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/fulfillment-bins\/","description":"A collection of images sourced from the “Amazon Bin Image Dataset”, which contains over 500,000 images “captured as robot units carry pods as part of normal Amazon Fulfillment Center operations.” The project is realized as a single image\/video containing only the empty bins, as well as a searchable archive, and was produced for the a2p project curated by Casey Reas, Iris Long, and Carol Sabbadini.\nDetails of Empty Bins\nWebsite"},{"title":"Get Well Soon","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/get-well-soon\/","pubDate":"Tue, 31 Mar 2020 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/get-well-soon\/","description":"Get Well Soon is a massive e-card comprised of over 200,000 unique messages of well wishes. The messages are sourced from the popular crowd funding site gofundme.com, a self-described \u201cleader in online medical fundraising\u201d, which, due to lack of affordable healthcare in the United States is widely relied upon for funding vital medical procedures. The piece is accompanied by a short essay from Johanna Hedva.\nGet Well Soon was made in collaboration with Tega Brain."},{"title":"New York Apartment","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/new-york-apartment\/","pubDate":"Fri, 06 Mar 2020 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/new-york-apartment\/","description":"New York Apartment combines the totality of New York real estate into a single website, sourced from every single for-sale listing in New York City. The site includes hundreds of thousands of images, video tours, descriptive sentences, 3d structures generated from extruded floor plans, and a mortgage calculator.\nNew York Apartment was made in collaboration with Tega Brain. It was a commission from the Whitney Museum for the Artport collection, curated by Christiane Paul."},{"title":"Other Orders","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/other-orders\/","pubDate":"Fri, 06 Sep 2019 14:50:13 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/other-orders\/","description":"Other Orders is a system for sorting text-based content.\nThe project was supported by Akademie Schloss Solitude \/ ZKM web residency program for Rigged Systems, curated by Jonas Lund.\nRecommendation systems, like the ones powering the infinite feeds on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, are designed to keep you online for as long as possible for the sake of maximizing ad revenue. In doing so, they promote the most reactionary content on their platforms."},{"title":"Occupied B&B","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/occupied-bnb\/","pubDate":"Mon, 18 Mar 2019 01:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/occupied-bnb\/","description":"A visual overview of Airbnb rentals in Israeli settlements.\nThis piece was made for the Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism, and accompanies an article in The Nation by Mairav Zonszein\nImages of homes for rent on Airbnb in Israeli settlements"},{"title":"Training Poses (Installation)","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/training-poses-installation\/","pubDate":"Thu, 07 Mar 2019 18:57:56 -0600","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/training-poses-installation\/","description":"An installation in which audience members attempt to match their poses to subjects in the Microsoft COCO image dataset.\nCommissioned by The Shed for Open Call.\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell\nPhoto by Kyle Knodell"},{"title":"Validated Purchases","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/validated-purchases\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Dec 2018 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/validated-purchases\/","description":"Validated Purchases is a series of 5000 unique prints, inserted into books on the shelves of Mill Basin Library in Brooklyn.\nThe project was commissioned by the Metropolitan New York Library Council for the exhibit “Privacy in Public”.\nThe prints were generated by a computer program that searches Amazon.com for books on the shelves of Mill Basin Library. The software uses public product reviews to compile a list of customers who purchased each book, and then finds all the other products they’ve publicly bought on Amazon, again via review data."},{"title":"The New Organs","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-new-organs\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Sep 2018 01:03:18 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-new-organs\/","description":"The New Organs is an ongoing project to gather, archive and investigate the theories and realities of corporate surveillance.\nCommissioned by Mozilla, and in collaboration with Tega Brain.\nThe New Organs website"},{"title":"ICE Propaganda Videos","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/ice-propaganda-videos\/","pubDate":"Fri, 01 Jun 2018 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/ice-propaganda-videos\/","description":"A systematic examination of propaganda videos produced by ICE and originally published on the Defense Video Imagery Distribution System. Each work in this series is algorithmically generated from a single ICE video. I feed every frame of every video into image classifying software capable of identifying and isolating common objects in images. The system looks specifically for segments containing human bodies or body parts, and the final image is algorithmically constructed from the segments, ordered by size."},{"title":"Training Poses","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/training-poses\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jan 2018 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/training-poses\/","description":"Microsoft’s COCO (Common Objects in Context) dataset contains 220,000 labeled images, originally sourced from Flickr, and then tagged and annotated by workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk.\nThe goal of the project, which is used as training material for countless machine learning systems, is to enable state-of-the-art object recognition by “gathering images of complex everyday scenes containing common objects in their natural context.”\nOne such system is OpenPose, which is able to estimate human poses from still images."},{"title":"Bail Bloc","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/bail-bloc\/","pubDate":"Fri, 01 Dec 2017 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/bail-bloc\/","description":"A downloadable application and website that raises money for bail funds by mining cryptocurrency.\nWhen users download the app, a small part of their computer’s unused processing power is redirected toward mining the Monero cryptocurrency, which is secure, private, and untraceable. At the end of every month, the Monero is exchanged for US dollars which are then donated to the Bronx Freedom Fund.\nMade in collaboration with Grayson Earle, Maya Binyam, and Francis Tseng."},{"title":"Are You Ready","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/are-you-ready\/","pubDate":"Wed, 01 Nov 2017 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/are-you-ready\/","description":"Video produced by U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is slowly rendered unintelligible. The original video is a guide to the US naturalisation process, offering viewers a series of practice questions for the citizenship test. I begin by isolating phonemes (or word sounds) in the video, and then slowly sorting and interchanging them until the original becomes multi-voiced, garbled and obscure.\nAbandon Normal Devices Festival, Castleton, England. Photo by Chris Foster"},{"title":"The Infinite Campaign","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-infinite-campaign\/","pubDate":"Fri, 30 Jun 2017 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-infinite-campaign\/","description":"The Infinite Campaign automatically generates and posts an infinite series of video ad campaigns.\nI downloaded all of the demographic categories that Facebook and Twitter use to sell targeted advertising. A computer program randomly selects three of these categories, then overlays that text on top of automatically selected stock footage to generate an ad-like video. Finally, the program logs me in to Twitter, uploads the video, and auto-generates a new ad campaign, targeting the same groups used to generate the video."},{"title":"The Good Life (Enron Simulator)","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-good-life-enron-simulator\/","pubDate":"Sun, 25 Jun 2017 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-good-life-enron-simulator\/","description":"The Enron scandal was, as of 2004, the largest bankruptcy in American history and is a prescient example of corporate fraud and audit failure. The Good Life offers a unique opportunity to experience this landmark event from the inside. Users may sign up to receive 225,000 emails confiscated from Enron by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, direct to their inbox. The emails arrive in the order they were sent, over the course of 7, 14, or 28 years."},{"title":"You Can Encrypt Your Face","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/you-can-encrypt-your-face\/","pubDate":"Wed, 21 Jun 2017 13:17:59 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/you-can-encrypt-your-face\/","description":"Cut-out masks made from the faces of 130 executives at leading biometric corporations.\nAll masks may be downloaded here.\nCollaboration with Brian Clifton and Aaron Cantu.\nSample masks\nJust the eyes "},{"title":"Baabaa","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/baabaa\/","pubDate":"Sat, 10 Jun 2017 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/baabaa\/","description":"An index of selected commodities listed for sale on alibaba.com. Items are arranged by price and minimum order quantity and are search results for terms like “riot gear” and “human labor”.\nPrints at the Current Museum, New York\nPrints at Pioneer Works, New York\nSingle edition print"},{"title":"White Collar Crime Risk Zones","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/white-collar-crime-risk-zones\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Apr 2017 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/white-collar-crime-risk-zones\/","description":"White Collar Crime Risk Zones uses machine learning to predict where financial crimes are mostly likely to occur across the US. The project is realized as a website, smartphone app and gallery installation. Made in collaboration with Brian Clifton and Francis Tseng.\nMobile interface\nWeb interface\nInstallation at Ars Electronic\nStrata Data Conference, New York\nRisograph print of Manhattan\nWhite Collar Crime Risk Zones talk at Strata, NY"},{"title":"Single Question Survey","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/single-question-survey\/","pubDate":"Fri, 06 Jan 2017 10:26:52 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/single-question-survey\/","description":"I emailed a single-question yes\/no survey to the top 3000 economists in the world: “Do capitalists earn profit by exploiting workers?”\nSingle question survey print\nSingle question survey risograph"},{"title":"Really Cool Tips","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/really-cool-tips\/","pubDate":"Mon, 02 Jan 2017 13:10:52 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/really-cool-tips\/","description":"A collection of 800,000 imperitive statements scraped from wikihow.com, assembled into a book and website.\nCollaboration with Daniel Kent.\nExcerpts\nExcerpts\nExcerpts"},{"title":"Slow Hot Computer","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/slow-hot-computer\/","pubDate":"Thu, 08 Sep 2016 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/slow-hot-computer\/","description":"Slow Hot Computer is a website that makes your computer run slow and hot. Use it at work to decrease your productivity.\nThe site works by running “processor intensive tasks”, that is, it downloads an image file over and over again until the user’s computer slows to a near halt while remaining minimally usable.\nWebsite\nInstallation for Artificial Retirement, Flux Factory, NY\nInstallation for Artificial Retirement, Flux Factory, NY\nInstallation for Artificial Retirement, Flux Factory, NY"},{"title":"Online Shopping Center","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/online-shopping-center\/","pubDate":"Fri, 01 Jul 2016 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/online-shopping-center\/","description":"Over the course of a week I used a consumer-grade EEG machine to record my brain activity while shopping online and thinking about my own mortality. With this data, I trained my computer to predict whether I am thinking about shopping or death. I then filmed myself sleeping for three nights while wearing the EEG machine. The machine communicates with my computer, interprets my mental state. If it believes that I am dreaming about shopping, it attempts to buy things on my behalf."},{"title":"Guided Meditation","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/guided-meditation\/","pubDate":"Wed, 01 Jun 2016 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/guided-meditation\/","description":"In Guided Meditation the rituals of the presidential election become a guided meditation performed by the candidates for their own self-actualization, a processes of renewal and self-healing for the ruling class. “Umms” become “omms”, and political jargon healing words. Commissioned by DIS Magazine.\nIn Guided Meditation Part 2, Nancy Pelosi helps us accept the world as it is.\nInstallation at Pioneer Works"},{"title":"Smell Dating","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/smell-dating\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Feb 2016 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/smell-dating\/","description":"Smell Dating is a dating service that matches you based on scent alone. The project was a collaboration with Tega Brain and Useless Press.\nHow it works (from the website):\nWe send you a t-shirt You wear the shirt for three days and three nights without deodorant. You return the shirt to us in a prepaid envelope. We send you swatches of t-shirts worn by a selection of other individuals. You smell the samples and tell us who you like."},{"title":"PCKWCK","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/pckwck\/","pubDate":"Mon, 12 Oct 2015 13:11:01 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/pckwck\/","description":"I programmed and co-produced “PCKCK”, an experimental online platform that allowed Joshua Cohen to write a novella in real time.\nOver the course of 5 days, acclaimed author Joshua Cohen wrote a novella titled “PCKWCK”, live on the internet. Vistors to pckwck.com (no longer available) were able to see a every character stroke Cohen typed as well as his face, chat with each other, and offer feedback by clicking on words and phrases they wished to highlight."},{"title":"The Data Drive","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/data-drive\/","pubDate":"Mon, 03 Aug 2015 00:32:54 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/data-drive\/","description":"I produced and code The Data Drive, a reproduction of Facebook made entirely of printed material set in a dystopian reality in which Mark Zuckerberg has gone into hiding after stealing everyone’s data. The project was created by Daniel Kolitz with Useless Press."},{"title":"Job Creator","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/job-creator\/","pubDate":"Fri, 10 Jul 2015 21:43:33 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/job-creator\/","description":"Custom brick."},{"title":"Push Button for Self-Help","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/push-button-for-self-help\/","pubDate":"Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/push-button-for-self-help\/","description":"Ultra-condensed self-help audio books.\nSelf-help manual\nSelf-help manual\nSelf-help manual"},{"title":"Street Views","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/street-views\/","pubDate":"Wed, 03 Jun 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/street-views\/","description":"Street Views is an inventory of physical locations whose legal, political or social statuses are in some way remarkable, but invisible to a casual observer.\nThe project is split into three categories of locations: real estate assets owned by US congresspeople, privately owned and run prisons, and for-profit universities.\nReal estate owned by congresspeople (excerpt)\nPrivately owned prisons (excerpt)\nFor profit colleges (excerpt)"},{"title":"Useless Press","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/useless-press\/","pubDate":"Tue, 02 Jun 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/useless-press\/","description":"Useless Press was an experimental publishing platform that created eclectic internet things.\nCo-founded by Alix Rule and Adrian Chen, with contributions by Laura Juo-Hsin Chen, Tega Brain, Joshua Cohen, Cat Frazier, Aaron Arntz, Brian Clifton, and Daniel Kolitz."},{"title":"Case Study","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/case-study\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jun 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/case-study\/","description":"Case Study is a briefcase that analyzes and produces visualizations of literary\/philosophical texts using weaponized natural language processing software originally developed by the military. The parsing software, which finds and tags geopolitical events and world-historical actors in news articles, was originally intended to be a tool to help governments make predictions about global trends and material conflicts. In Case Study, we use that same tool on literary and philosophical texts rather than news articles, producing visualizations that frame literary and philosophical events in the language of geopolitics and the military."},{"title":"21,092 millennia, 8 centuries, 49 years...","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/21092-millennia-8-centuries-49-years\/","pubDate":"Thu, 02 Apr 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/21092-millennia-8-centuries-49-years\/","description":"Video piece made from found footage of prisoners and detainees, shown in Times Square. Overlayed on the video is a countdown clock, which starts 21,092 millennia, 8 centuries, 49 years, 11 months, 2 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes, 21 seconds: an approximate count of the cumulative sentence for all U.S. prisoners."},{"title":"The Intergovernmental Panel on Capitalism","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-intergovernmental-panel-on-capitalism\/","pubDate":"Fri, 27 Mar 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/the-intergovernmental-panel-on-capitalism\/","description":"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, founded by the United Nations in 1988, is the “leading international body for the assessment of climate change.” The organization is tasked with assessing and synthesizing research around climate change. Every few years it publishes a series of comprehensive reports on the current state of climate change research and knowledge.\nThe Intergovernmental Panel on Capitalism is an effort to systematically modify all material published by the IPCC: through a series of automated procedures we replace every instance of the phrase “climate change” with the word “capitalism” in reports, web pages, images and video."},{"title":"CSPAN-5","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/cspan-5\/","pubDate":"Sun, 01 Mar 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/cspan-5\/","description":"CSPAN-5 is a video Twitter bot. Every day, a computer program downloads a random video from C-SPAN, then transcribes that video and analyzes which words were spoken most frequently. Using that analysis, the bot generates a new cut of the video containing only the top keywords. Encompassing an impossibly large corpus of political spectacle, talking points and general tedium, CSPAN-5 presents American politics in its most concentrated form.\nExcerpts from CSPAN-5 Art of Bots exhibit, Sommerset House, London"},{"title":"3 Degrees of Separation from the Military-Industrial-Prison-Data-Surveillance State","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/3-degrees-of-separation\/","pubDate":"Thu, 01 Jan 2015 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/3-degrees-of-separation\/","description":"A map of people on LinkedIn within 2 or 3 degrees of separation from me who have received endorsements for skills like “surveillance” and “interrogation”."},{"title":"Yelp Prison Review Faxbot","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/yelp-prison-review-faxbot\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Nov 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/yelp-prison-review-faxbot\/","description":"Prisons are a big business, and like all business they are occasionally reviewed on Yelp. Some of these reviews are snarky one-liners - for example, one user describes Rikers Island as a \u201cgreat island getaway right in my own backyard.\u201d Other reviews appear to be honest firsthand accounts, describing the experience of being a visitor or an inmate.\nThe Prison Review Faxbot finds these reviews and then faxes them to prison administrators."},{"title":"Videogrep","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/videogrep\/","pubDate":"Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/videogrep\/","description":"Videogrep is an open source command line tool that searches through dialog in video files (using .srt or .vtt subtitle tracks, or pocketsphinx transcriptions) and makes supercuts based on what it finds.\nAll instances of the word \"time\" in the movie \"In Time\"\nFormer White House press secretary Jay Carney's telling us what he can tell us\nGrammatical patterns in 100 Ted talks\nAll silences in the movie Total Recall"},{"title":"Rubbernecker","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/rubbernecker\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Sep 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/rubbernecker\/","description":"A slideshow that places the spectator into various historical contexts. Requires camera access and works best in Chrome.\nCollaboration with Pam Liou."},{"title":"Oculus Birth","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/oculus-birth\/","pubDate":"Tue, 05 Aug 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/oculus-birth\/","description":"Part 1 of a series of speculative virtual reality projects. Illustrations by David Tracy. Also appears in The New Inquiry.\nFigure 1: Conception.\nFigure 2: Two miniaturized GoPro cameras are affixed to the skull of the fetus.\nFigure 3: Gestation.\nFigure 4: \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to this experience.\u201d\nFigure 5: The live feed.\nFigure 6: The mother experiences the birth of her child from the child\u2019s perspective.\nFigure 7: Crowning."},{"title":"Oculus Oedipus","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/oculus-oedipus\/","pubDate":"Sun, 03 Aug 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/oculus-oedipus\/","description":"Part 2 of a series of speculative virtual reality projects. Illustrations by David Tracy. Also appears in The New Inquiry.\nPreparation Figure 1: The family.\nFigure 2: 3D scanning of the mother.\nFigure 3: 3D scanning of the father.\nFigure 4: The mother and father are captured in virtual space.\nFigure 5: The user enters Oculus Oedipus.\nFigure 6: \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to this experience.\u201d\nStage 1: Father Figure 7: A conflict on the road."},{"title":"Big Data Pawn Shop","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/big-data-pawn-shop\/","pubDate":"Thu, 17 Jul 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/big-data-pawn-shop\/","description":"An automatically generated Zazzle store offering products adorned with leaked NSA documents.\nCollaboration with Surya Mattu and Adam Harvey.\nSample products\nArt of Bots exhibit, Sommerset House, London\nArt of Bots exhibit, Sommerset House, London\nArt of Bots exhibit, Sommerset House, London\nArt of Bots exhibit, Sommerset House, London\nCandygram mug"},{"title":"LazyCoin","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/lazycoin\/","pubDate":"Tue, 20 May 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/lazycoin\/","description":"LazyCoin is a physical currency that anyone can mint by doing nothing. In other words, it is a currency for storing non value. The protocol for generating LazyCoin is described in the white paper.\nIn collaboration with Brian Clifton, Karl Ward, Jon Wasserman, and Surya Mattu.\nPrintable LazyCoin"},{"title":"Patent Generator","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/patent-generator\/","pubDate":"Thu, 01 May 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/patent-generator\/","description":"A python script that transforms literary and philosophical texts into patent applications.\nThe script includes three examples:\n“A method and device for comprehending theoretically the historical movement” (The Communist Manifesto) “An apparatus and device for staring into vacancy (The Hunger Artist by Kafka) “A device and system for belonging to bringing-forth” (The Question Concerning Technology by Heidegger) Excerpts from A method and device for comprehending theoretically the historical movement\nABSTRACT A method and device for comprehending theoretically the historical movement."},{"title":"Why Do We Work So Hard?","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/why-do-we-work-so-hard\/","pubDate":"Tue, 01 Apr 2014 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/why-do-we-work-so-hard\/","description":"Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries they work, stroll home, they stop by the cafe, they take August off. Off. Why aren\u2019t you like that? Why aren\u2019t we like that? Because we\u2019re crazy driven hardworking believers that\u2019s why. Those other countries think we\u2019re nuts. Whatever. Were the Wright brothers insane? Bill Gates? Les Paul? Ali. Were we nuts when we pointed to the moon?"},{"title":"Stupid Shit No One Needs & Terrible Ideas Hackathon","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/stupid-shit-no-one-needs--terrible-ideas-hackathon\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Jun 2013 21:43:34 -0400","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/projects\/stupid-shit-no-one-needs--terrible-ideas-hackathon\/","description":"A one-day event where participants conceptualize and create projects that have no value whatsoever. Co-organized by with Amelia Winger-Bearskin."},{"title":"About","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/about\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/about\/","description":"Sam Lavigne is an artist and educator whose work deals with data, surveillance, cops, natural language processing, and automation. He is a Creative Capital grantee, recipient of the Pioneer Works Working Artist Fellowship, and the Brown Institute’s Magic Grant. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Synthetic Media and Algorithmic Justice at the Parsons School of Design.\nSoftware FFMpeg Explorer: a tool to explore FFmpeg filters in the browser p5.vscode: an extension for Visual Studio Code to manage p5."},{"title":"Contact","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/contact\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/contact\/","description":"Email: [sam@lav.io](mailto: sam@lav.io)\nTwitter: @sam_lavigne\nGithub: github.com\/antiboredom\nVimeo: vimeo.com\/saaaam\nYouTube: youtube.com\/c\/saaaam"},{"title":"News","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/news\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/news\/","description":" Newsletter "},{"title":"Student Work","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/student-work\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/student-work\/","description":"Selected Work from Advanced Interaction (Undergraduate) Claren, Generated Clothing A series of outfits generated programmatically in p5.js, and then physically produced.\nLinda, Clock Time visualization in p5.js.\nMinh, Tarot Tarot card generator.\nMark, Faces Face generator.\nSelected Work from Design & Social Environment (Undergraduate) Moira, Like a Virgin Birth control pills hidden inside a rosary.\nLauren, Gentrification Certification Custom-made certificates indicating home sales that gentrify a neighborhood.\nDiego, Look Closer DIY graphic garments."},{"title":"Teaching","link":"https:\/\/lav.io\/teaching\/","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/lav.io\/teaching\/","description":"Infinite Video (School for Poetic Computation) How can code and automation help us see and manipulate large collections of videos in new ways? What do novel approaches in machine learning help make evident? On the flip side, what do these same approaches prevent us from seeing? What do they obscure? How can automated “content generation” be leveraged for political, poetic, and critical ends?\nSyllabus: https:\/\/github.com\/antiboredom\/infinite-video-fall-2023\nScrapism (School for Poetic Computation) Scrapism is the artistic practice of web scraping, or of automatically collecting and transforming found digital material."}]}}