This Person Does not Exist. Representation Theories and Practices of a Desired Face

Abstract

The human body digitization and reconfiguration processes, in recent years, have been conditioned by imaging tools assisted by advanced algorithms of formal manipulation of images, interesting different disciplinary areas in disseminating disembodied aesthetic canons that are confronted with the expectations of those who want to impersonate them.

If the posthuman now seems to have completed its progress, the transhuman is the promoter of a utopian policy of overcoming physical and cognitive wear, the metahuman instead is the protagonist: an alter ego of the self mediated by a seductive and perfectible virtual body with whom he communicates and relates with others.

The investigation objects are precisely today’s design practices and construction of credible humanity models that focus on the representation of completely non-existent faces, created by sophisticated algorithms of images generative reproduction, or by the construction of hyper-realistic and animated 3D avatars and by the increasingly pervasive introduction of photographic manipulation filters designated to social networks.

All of this shows how the ease of use of the available tools allows users to experiment the essence of a desired face, or to record its aesthetics mirrored by the verisimilitude of a standard designed by most. In general, however, the photorealism of the results invites reflection on the power of the image and its ability to direct the proprioceptive remodulation of the self.

In the problematic definition of “being”, the essay traces those digital forms of appearance that substantiate it, leading them back to the labile memory of a synthetic portrait.