Massive Attack projects audience members' faces onto their screens during concerts to raise awareness of facial recognition technology
Massive Attack Turns Concert Into Facial Recognition Surveillance Experiment - Gadget Review
https://www.gadgetreview.com/massive-attack-turns-concert-into-facial-recognition-surveillance-experiment
Band Uses Live Facial Recognition on Audience in Powerful Critique of Technology | PetaPixel
https://petapixel.com/2025/09/17/band-massive-attack-uses-live-facial-recognition-on-audience-in-powerful-critique-of-technology/
Massive Attack is known for their mix of hip-hop, reggae, rock, and electronica, and their signature song ' Teardrop ' has been viewed over 110 million times on YouTube. They are also known for their strong political messages, making statements about technology such as surveillance, privacy, and data.
Massive Attack, who performed at a music festival in London's Victoria Park in June 2025, performed a performance in which concertgoers were scanned with facial recognition technology and projected in real time onto a screen onstage. Over the past week or so, this performance has been widely shared on social media.
You can see the audience's faces projected onto the stage at around 2 minutes and 10 seconds in the video below.
Massive Attack //Girl I Love You ft. Horace Andy/Live LIDO Festival /2025 Victoria Park - YouTube
During the performance, text is projected onto a screen above the stage. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be people's personal information, such as 'NAME,' 'AGE,' 'ID,' and 'UNIT.'
Suddenly, people's faces were projected onto the screen.
The projection appears to be of an audience watching a concert. Looking closely, characters resembling occupations or job titles, such as 'RESOURCE PLANNNER,' 'DIGITAL ARCHIVIST,' 'RISK ASSESSOR,' 'EDITOR,' and 'SPORKESPERSON,' are displayed above the faces. Some of the characters include outlandish ones like 'HACKER' and 'WEAPON SPECIALIST,' and it's unclear whether they are actual occupations.
A huge number of scanned faces filled the screen.
PetaPixel said, 'The performance highlighted how facial recognition systems often record, analyze, and store images without people's explicit consent.' Gadget Review also pointed out, 'The audience's biometric data became part of the artistic message, with or without their consent.'
The performance has divided fans, with some calling it a 'privacy invasion disguised as art,' while others see it as 'a shock therapy intended to wake up people to the acceptance of facial recognition technology in their daily lives.' Gadget Review noted, 'The reactions on both sides prove that this intervention has achieved its devastating purpose.'
Related Posts:
