Boogaloo Bias is an interactive artwork lampooning the unregulated use of facial recognition technology, particularly the practice of 'brute forcing' where law enforcement uses images of celebrity look-alikes when high-quality photos of suspects are not available. Presented in the guise of a corporate fiction, the Boogaloo Bias facial recognition system searches for members of the Boogaloo Bois anti-law enforcement militia using an algorithm trained on faces of characters from the 1984 movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. The film is the namesake for the Boogaloo Bois, who emerged from 4chan meme culture and have been present at both right and left-wing protests in the US since January 2020. The system is used to search live video feeds, protest footage, and images that are uploaded to the Boogaloo Bias website. All matches made by the system are false positives. No information from the live feeds or website uploads is saved or shared.

Boogaloo Bias is based on numerous academic and journalistic investigations into how law enforcement has implemented facial recognition when they lack a clear, high-quality image of a suspect. Rather than providing a technological solution for how to improve facial recognition, Boogaloo Bias allows viewers to interact with a system that emphasizes the most questionable facial recognition practices in order to raise questions about oversight within a socio-technical system where human judgment is aided by proprietary, black-boxed technology developed by private companies for profit.

Derek Curry and Jennifer Gradecki are media artists who critique technological solutionism by reverse-engineering technologies to reveal underlying assumptions and problems that arise through implementation. They use methods from media theory and science and technology studies as a means for critical engagement. They often replicate technologies used for social control or that have a significant social impact, including open-source surveillance systems, financial technologies, and neural networks. They are Associate Professors in Art + Design at Northeastern University. They hold MFAs from UCLA (New Genres 2010) and PhDs from SUNY Buffalo in Media Study (Curry 2018) and Visual Studies (Gradecki 2019). They have exhibited at venues including Ars Electronica, Science Gallery, Arts Santa Mónica, NeMe, ADAF, NEoN Digital Arts Festival, and Piksel Festival. They have published in Leonardo, Big Data & Society, Artnodes, Visual Resources, and Leuven University Press. They are recipients of the 2023 MediaFutures’ award for Best Artists.