Faces

a project in resemblance

Our facial recognition abilities are largely influenced by our families, friends, and the media. In today's globalized world, where the media industry is heavily celebrity-based, our capacity to recognize faces has expanded to unprecedented levels. Familiar and unfamiliar faces merge into a vast field, often leading us to question, "Have I seen you somewhere?" As a result, the process of facial recognition, which used to be a personal one, becomes more objective due to necessity.

This project is rooted in a systematic introspective activity, aiming to explore the personal and social implications of our shared origins and interconnectedness. It brings up intriguing questions: Are there specific types of faces, or do we only perceive types of features? Do these features vary continuously, or are there clearly defined thresholds? Can a level of genetic kinship or relatedness be inferred from an accidental, meaningless resemblance?

To facilitate this exploration, custom software was developed. This software acts as a database for user-provided matches, with the ability to diagnose resemblance structures such as rings or groups. The portrait pool included in the software comprises results from Google searches of celebrity figures, photographs of family and friends, and portraits taken with the permission of strangers. This diverse and comprehensive database aids in the exploration and understanding of our facial vocabulary and the factors that shape it.