THE F1A2C1E

Distortions in the face are usually considered as the ‘other’, whether it be dysmorphic features that result in an abnormal difference in facial structure or body structure.

The face is considered an “organ of emotion”, as the face contains our ability to understand what others are feeling through reading facial expressions and deciphering the identity that is captured in the features.

The work consists of a 6ft x 6ft frame that aligns with the video projection, with four head busts surrounding a 4ft x 3ft painting in the center. The video and score play onto this installation as an interaction between the physical and the digital. This work is an exploration of a type of confrontation between human and ‘other’, directly associated with how we recognize fellow human beings: the face. The ‘other’ in this case can be defined as deviating from a standard; uncommon in amount or degree and usually perceived as strange, alienated; unknown. 

I explored the modification of the human face, ultimately losing traditional facial features and becoming this ‘other’. The face is seemingly distorted but aims to emphasize that the organism remains, only beyond the conventional. The video is a collection of produced images using StyleGAN3, which is a generative adversarial network with un-aligned datasets and random outputs, in which I specifically chose the outputs that maintained the source image’s facial characteristics, even if they were heavily morphed. The score aims to give an aural impression of StyleGan3 creating these visuals and pushing forth that discomfort with the ‘other’, and mimicking the movement and texture of the faces deteriorating. The sculpture creates an illusion in the painting of that fleshy, pulsating nature of the experience of altering these human faces.