The algorithms in the casino - VOLTOCUBISTA

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Can fashion challenge the eyes of the casino?

Exploring how textile and technology can resist the algorithms that turn pleasure into prediction and visibility into control.

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Facing the Algorithm

In the casino, surveillance doesn’t just observe, it learns. Behind the shimmer of lights and sound, a hidden network of cameras and algorithms tracks every gesture, hesitation, and gaze. This data is not used for safety alone but to predict and influence behaviour, subtly shaping how long players stay and how much they spend. AI-driven vision systems translate emotion and movement into patterns, turning chance into code, and pleasure into strategy.

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The concept

The answer finds its voice in silk, a fabric both soft and defiant. Inspired by Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, it embraces Cubism’s fractured gaze, where forms are split, reframed, and seen from multiple perspectives. This visual fragmentation is more than aesthetic, it becomes a strategy of resistance. By breaking symmetry and multiplying angles, the pattern disrupts the points that facial recognition algorithms rely on, turning the wearer’s identity into a dynamic, shifting geometry. Silk, with its natural sheen and fluidity, amplifies this effect, reflecting light and motion in ways that confuse cameras, creating a surface that is both beautiful and protective.

💎 This deliberate distortion is not violence but liberation: a refusal to be defined by a single angle. Layered prints, moiré effects, and reflective threads translate this spirit into fabric, creating a surface that fragments the algorithm’s vision and gives the wearer control over how they are seen. In casino environments, where hundreds of cameras rely on facial recognition and infrared mapping, this material distortion breaks the visual logic of surveillance, confusing sensors through shimmer, flicker, and movement.

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Soft Geometry, Hard Edge

Under infrared and wide-dynamic-range sensors, the scarf’s surface becomes unpredictable, performing a subtle dance between visibility and concealment. By bending light and confusing detection, it transforms fashion into a poetic form of protection.
 Made and printed in Como, the historical heart of Italy’s silk industry, responsible for over 80% of Europe’s silk production, it carries both centuries of craftsmanship and a spirit of resistance.

🌀 The result is a quiet dialogue between tradition and technology, luxury and autonomy, a bridge between artisanal heritage and digital interference, a soft geometry that meets the hard edge of surveillance with elegance and intent.

😈 The design is not meant to hide. It serves as a reminder to the social machine, and to everyone, that being seen does not mean being owned.
Because even beneath the gaze of the devil, you still have free will.

Credits:

Ziwei Chen / Feng Qingqing / Gervasoni Martina / Lai Qican / Shao Shixian / Zhuang Haoyue

The project was realized as part of the Fashion Craft course within the Master’s Degree in Design for the Fashion System at Polimi.