RE:TOUCHED

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS!!

COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL ART PROJECT -
RE:TOUCHED

I am seeking other pixel artists and digital imagers to collaborate with on a group project.

Except for the people we have met face-to-face, there is an anonymous filter through which we see virtually every other person in the world. How is that filter imperfect? (i.e.-What do the eyebrows on the talk show host’s makeup artist look like? What would they fix about themselves? What are they oblivious to?) This project is a reversal of the typical receptive gaze.

What similarities and differences arise when a person’s most important visual feature (their face) is anonymously handed over to a largely unsupervised and uncoordinated group? Let's find out!

Contributors give up the rights to their own face, and take creative license with the faces of others, unaware of who they are retouching or what the person looks like originally. They just contribute their own idealized cheek or eyelid, having no concept of the whole face.

The idea:

• Each participant takes a hi-resolution close-up photo of their face. The photo is raw and un-altered.
• The photos are emailed to me.
• I chop up each photo into segments. (around 10-15)
• I email each artist random segments of the faces of the other participants.
• Each artist takes the liberty of re-touching each segment they receive. Alterations can include adding or smoothing texture, adjusting hue, redirecting lighting, sharpness, adding jewelry, “fixing” anatomy, incorporating new backgrounds, and on and on. Ideally, each segment will look like it’s from a completely different “photo shoot” with its own feel. From the perspective of the retoucher there will be no idea of what the rest of the face looks like or what other artists are doing with the other areas of that face.
• The altered segments are emailed back to me and I will reconstruct the face.

Timing:
This will be an ongoing project for all of 2009.

Display & Scope:
The segments of the faces will be printed out on canvas. They will be approximately 4x larger than life. Exactly how “oversize” they will be depends on budget and gallery space constraints. I am also seeking gallery and art space recommendations!

Guidelines:
Not many. I would like to suggest that participants err on the side of subtlety, and “altered realism” rather than going for wild patterns, cartoony effects, etc. If two segments on the same face end up looking similar through coincidence, I may request one of the contributors revise their work.

Send me an email if you (or someone you know) is interested!