2018 | Video | vintage found photographs, custom-made pixel sorting processing application, video loop, Custom framed HD monitor | Dimensions: 10in x 6.75in x 1.40in framed // 25.5cm x 17cm x 3.5cm framed
Faces, traces explores the relation between photography and identity, index and trace, in a series of videos using found vintage portraits that have been digitally manipulated, transcending the individual identities in lieu of collective rituals and shared cultural memories.
Portraiture is a central medium of autobiography and family memory. It is also a symbol of social status. But once separated from the person photographed or their family, portraits become a trace of an unknown story, as well as a token for multiple possible narratives.
By replacing the faces with an abstract flow of colors and shapes – a pixel sorting algorithm creates a dynamic glitch where the elements of the image are continuously regenerating and composing new images – the insinuated, ever-changing landscapes represent the vast possible stories behind each portrait, or rather the multiple meanings we imbued them with.
In doing so, Faces, traces highlights how our inability to capture the moment leads us to recreate it, interpret it, falsify it, every time we remember. How recoverable is anyone's past? How unique or integral is anyone's identity? How reliable is any evidence for these things?
