Human Faces (2011)

Human Faces is a collection of facial reconstructions found on the personalized gift website ThatsMyFace.com. The website allows users to upload photographs of themselves (or anyone else for that matter) onto a server, where they are then converted by the website's software into "3D" facial models. These portraits are created by a collaboration between the user, who selects the original photographs and places facial coordinates, and the computer program, which morphs the image into a 3D model with an autonomous algorithmic computation.

Full Description

Human Faces is a collection of facial reconstructions found on the personalized gift website ThatsMyFace.com. The website allows users to upload photographs of themselves (or anyone else for that matter) onto a server, where they are then converted by the website's software into "3D" facial models. These portraits are created by a collaboration between the user, who selects the original photographs and places facial coordinates, and the computer program, which morphs the image into a 3D model with an autonomous algorithmic computation. The user can then view multiple versions of his or her face, appearing more masculine, feminine, older, younger, East-Asian, African, ect. The face can then be printed onto action figures, 3D portraits, masks or scale models, as a highly personalized gift, keepsake or toy.

The beauty of the website is in its "community" section, in which thousands of user generated reconstructed faces are uploaded and available for public manipulation free of charge. The public database allows anyone to browse through thousands of anonymous (to the point of a username, ethnicity and age) computer reconstructed facial representations, arranged either alphabetically or by specific characteristics. These faces often lay in the uncanny valley - that gap between a highly realistic portrait and a cartoonish caricature, where we feel unsettled or frightened by the image that looks alive but possesses few characteristics of a living thing. The reconstructions are sometimes accurate, but equally often they exaggerate or distort facial characteristics. In either case, viewing these faces results in a unique intimacy between the browser and the face of the uploader, who can view all versions of the face and even pay to have it printed out onto a mask or 3D model. Exploring the database of faces evokes an almost voyeuristic feeling, like spending too much time looking at a stranger's Facebook page (in this case being a literal collection of faces). One experiences an impersonal intimacy that seems to be symptomatic of the human condition in today's digital world.

Work metadata

  • Year Created: 2011
  • Submitted to ArtBase: Wednesday Sep 14th, 2011
  • Original Url: http://humanface.tumblr.com/
  • Work Credits:
    • John Also Bennett, curator
    • Users of thatsmyface.com,
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Artist Statement

This collection of faces represents the malleability and fragility of the human face and individual self in an age of intensive identity management through digital worlds. In generating a 3D model of a face on the website, facial features are given coordinate points and then fed into the algorithm that produces the image. This process is similar to that which produces the physical human face, in which a set of coordinates are fed through an algorithm or procedure - genetic traits fed through the human birthing process. Most of the 3D faces in this collection appear distorted or abstracted, much like our identities or perceived selves can appear when projected through the digital world.

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