Biometrics and its Resistance

Research on biometrics pays much attention to a major biopolitics and often frames the subject as passive and powerless. Here, I trace a minor biopolitics—articulations of biopolitical resistance—within the aesthetic practice of artist and educator Heather Dewey-Hagborg. Expanding Hans Belting’s image theory with biopolitical theory, I argue that it is possible to trace two forms of resistance: 1. an aesthetic resistance which critically visualizes the otherwise invisible carrier medium and sub-perceptive level of biometric images (in this case DNA portraits) and 2. a bodily resistance which disrupts the biometric image by masking and manipulating its core sub-perceptive image actor: the DNA. By working across several aesthetic domains, Hagborg intervenes at multiple levels of the biopolitical visual economy (Väliaho), making it possible for a broad audience to perceive, engage with, and critically reflect upon biometric images and the ways in which they operate, organize, and affect society.