This thesis contemplates the “politicization of vision” by exploring contemporary visualizing technologies that use body and facial recognition to map data in physical and virtual spaces. Through a technological review, this thesis analyzes the emergence of the “social media filter” and examines how this technology not only allows users to morph, alter and extend their digital bodies, but also creates data. Through the literature review I argue that this data contributes to “knowledge creation” for artificial intelligence systems, hence politicizing technologies of vision. Informed by my role as an “active subject” living in a surveilled urban environment, I pay attention to emotions as a guide throughout my creative process. Methodologically, this research-creation renders an immersive and speculative installation engaging bodies in physical space, whereby the audience-participant is materially and virtually present in the projected and captured data. This research-creation contains two pieces that work in tandem; the written document and the installation together make up “An Uneasy Terrain”.

• https://an-uneasy-terrain.format.com/