You are a human resource. Your presence is confirmed, your face is recognized, and your movements are tracked. While you work, the system collects your digital version: smiles, pauses, head turns. Gradually, every gesture acquires a value that you did not choose. You haven’t explained anything yet, but the system has already reached a conclusion.
HUMAN RESOURCE — an AR project tracking employee behavior in the workplace. I am interested in the point where surveillance becomes so detailed that every human reaction turns into material for evaluation.
A smile confirms compliance with the norm. Displeasure requires attention. The attempt to look away becomes evasion of observation. Even the absence of a signal is interpreted in its own right. How can one behave freely if every action is already factored into the report?
Your face becomes the interface. The system detects contours, tracks time, and assigns categories to expressions. It doesn’t ask what you feel or why. It only needs a visible sign to label your state.Try smiling, frowning, or turning away. Observe not only the filter’s reaction, but yourself—at what moment do you start contorting your face to achieve a desired result?The control continues even when the system is silent. You already know it’s watching.
You stand up from your computer, but the observation doesn’t end. Now the entire body comes into view. Its silhouette is composed of numbers that move with you. A living person becomes a shifting data surface.
This filter engages with standing and movement. Here, the object of observation is the human presence in space itself: posture, gesture, movement.
The numbers mirror your movements, but they say nothing about effort, fatigue, or the reason for stopping. The system gathers more and more data. How much more does it understand?
Augmented reality allows one to be inside a monitoring procedure. The user simultaneously becomes both a participant and material for analysis: they move, observe digital reactions, and attempt to influence them.Typically, the background control technologies remain invisible. Here, their gaze is projected onto the screen. One can see another layer emerging between the person and their image—an external interpretation of their behavior.
The black background conceals the environment and surrounding circumstances. Only white outlines, numbers, and discrete indicators remain in the system’s field of view. Red denotes moments when observation escalates into a demand for attention. As anxiety intensifies, the messages repeat, evaluations clash, and the image becomes saturated. The system continues to record what is happening even when its own signals cease to form a coherent picture.
The report allows you to count smiles and note deviations. It is far more difficult to see the human being who has been in front of the camera the entire time.When every movement is captured, every expression is classified, and observation becomes continuous, the question remains: what is the ultimate payoff?
