For this project, I will be exploring the incidental manipulation of facial recognition that occurs as a result of low quality or blurry photography, and recreating manipulations manually or reproducing it incidentally.
With an expanding use of facial recognition in markets and institutions, our physical identities are being recorded, stored, and sold. As a result, some artists and innovators have designed wearable products to prevent facial recognition (bottom left). Besides the societal consequences, facial recognition is important to our daily lives, deciphering and communicating information and emotion through facial expression. What are the consequences when this ability is diminished? What is the effect of a face without recognition?
As I manipulate my own face in a series of stills and videos, I will make statements on identity and recognizability. This self-portraiture is informed by the ever-expanding field of digital technology and its impact on identity. From the first camera to new technology like deep-fakes, reproduction of faces digitally often fools us; we often immediately accept the digital image as a real face/person. I look forward to mangling the connection between digital self-portrait photography and the true self.
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For the final installation, I created a series of 3D objects using Photoshop and Vectary. First, I Imported stills from a preliminary, datamoshed video in Photoshop and extruding the textures around themselves, creating three-dimensional objects. The objects themselves are radially symmetrical and resemble the shapes of vases, varying in width, height, and curvature. Other objects resembles tops, or generally speaking objects that when spun with a flick of the thumb and index fingers retain their motion on a flat surface.
The textures of the objects, meanwhile, present a flurry of facial features. Stretched faces wrap around the objects, their skewed eyes and gaping mouths staring back at the viewer. Ideally, the user interacts with the objects with their computer mouse or trackpad, turning them at their leisure. Instead, the web service Vectary that I used to turn the 3D objects into embed widgets on my website charges a fee for hosting online. Thus, the final installation included a performance of my own turns, twists, and zooms of the object seen through the convenient technology of Zoom screen sharing. I placed the object on virtual pedestals to enhance their illusions of realness. As I zoomed on the objects, their scale became indiscernible. Whether they were handheld or larger was unknown, especially due to their virtualness. Additional steps need to be taken to cement the objects in reality - "augmented reality" technology on a cell phone, 3D printing, or some other advanced method of projection.
The effect of the objects is largely personal, as they are textured with my face, and I took part in their creation. An easily replaceable texture file of the viewer's face, however, could make the experience collaborative. The distortion of my own face is an effect I play with often in my artwork, and it reflects my continued thoughts and views toward self-concept and self-representation, whether true, fabricated, incidental, or purposeful.