WHAT
Project Overview
Please Verify Yourself is an interactive installation and mobile web experience that explores how technology evaluates and misrecognizes people. Inspired by CAPTCHA systems, where the user has to prove that they’re not a bot, that logic is reversed. Instead, the system attempts to verify the user as human, but it never fully succeeds.
Participants begin by interacting with a physical card vending machine to receive a card, some containing a QR code that opens the mobile experience. On their phone, they spin a digital prize wheel and complete verification tasks. The sequence builds tension and anticipation, culminating in an interface that glitches and crashes, leaving the participant in a cycle of incomplete verification.
Timeline
Weeks 1-2
Refined the concept, created visual sketches, and built a rough proof of concept in p5.js with camera access and a grid display.
Weeks 3-4
Began implementing grid manipulation, scrambling behavior, and feedback messages. After encountering limitations with p5.js, the project was moved to Visual Studio Code and rebuilt as a web project hosted on GitHub.
Week 5 (Midterm)
The camera CAPTCHA was functionally working, allowing users to interact with the grid and receive basic feedback. Plans for access through QR or NFC were also explored.
Week 6-7
Added the checkbox and math CAPTCHA stages based on feedback, refined visual effects and text feedback logic.
Week 8-9
Implemented the prize and claim feature, built the cardboard vending machine, and created QR code cards to connect the physical installation with the web experience. Also started on the documentation website.
Week 10
Final polish, bug fixes, presentation preparation, and documentation
WHY
Concept & Motivation
We interact with systems that evaluate us every day, including facial recognition, CAPTCHA tests, and automated decision-making tools. At the same time, we frequently accept cookies, permissions, and data agreements in order to access websites and apps, often without much thought. This project reflects on how easily users consent to these systems and how normal it has become to allow technology to collect information and evaluate us.
By combining both a vending machine with a staged web experience, the project explores how digital platforms use incentives to encourage participation while maintaining authority over the user. The experience gradually escalates tension, creating a sense of unease that mirrors how automated systems can manipulate behavior. The increasingly harsh feedback highlights how these systems can feel cold, unfair, or even humiliating, questioning what it means to consent to being judged by technology.
HOW
Interaction
The project combines a physical installation with a mobile web experience. The process unfolds in the following steps:
Spin the vending machine
Participants spin the handle of a physical card vending machine to receive a printed card. Some cards ask the participant to try again, while others include a QR code to claim a prize.
Scan the QR code
If the participant receives a winning card, they scan the QR code with their phone to open the mobile web experience.
Spin the digital prize wheel
On the website, the participant spins a prize wheel and wins a “mystery prize.”
Complete verification tasks
Before claiming the prize, the system requires verification. The participant confirms they are not a robot, solves a math problem, and allows camera access to continue.
Perform image grid verification
The participant interacts with a camera-based image grid that shifts and rearranges as they select squares, preventing successful completion.
System breakdown and restart
The feedback becomes increasingly aggressive as the interface glitches and eventually crashes into a blue screen, prompting the participant to restart the experience.
HOW
Implementation
The project combines a physical installation built using cardboard with a mobile web experience built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, hosted on GitHub. Participants first interact with a card vending machine and then access the website on their smartphone via a QR code.
The web experience progresses through several stages of verification, including a checkbox, a math problem, and a camera-based image grid. The grid shifts and rearranges as the user selects images, preventing successful completion. Timed pop-up messages provide feedback, gradually shifting from neutral to aggressive, while visual effects such as glitches and distorted filters reinforce the sense of failure. The system ultimately crashes into a blue screen and prompts the user to restart, creating a cyclical experience that reflects the project’s themes of technological misrecognition and automated judgment.