Eleanor Gates Stuart: Save Face

 
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Artist Statement:


    If to Save Face centers on our fear of humiliation and reputation, then our instinct may be to change face, hide face, to become faceless. Yet, if we were to be fearless, would our strength be to protect our face, our visual identity, to confront matters face on and without concern that our human image will be harmed? Save Face, a stark photographic portrait, almost non-human in appearance yet distinctively of the artist herself and that of her partner, both captured in a performance of physical endurance. As we ask ourselves “How to survive?” “How to communicate?” whilst asking others to “Talk to me… what do you want?” Trusting fellow humans in sharing our innermost thoughts, shy in that our facial expressions may reveal emotional truth, even the rush of color as our face flushes with embarrassment… a glow, Save Face is saved through the outer face.

    Save Face is a digital portrait of my work concerning human mapping. The work stems from a body of work looking at plant systems as a means to characterize organic shape and form over soil-based heads in classifying ‘human likenesses.” The documentation and results are often recycled into various outputs, having used a range of technologies to facilitate the direction of artworks. This includes 3D scanning and experiments in VR. Save Face research extends from Eleanor Gates-Stuart’s research, ‘Growing Likeness’, where human characteristics are defined via plant growth systems. These ‘portraits’ were grown as human casts design to withhold human shape form whilst being capable of intake of water irrigation and seed development. ‘Growing Likeness’, the project enabled collaboration with plant scientist Sergio Moroni at Charles Sturt University in comparing root growth development in canola plants. ‘Save Face’ places the human inside the cast as the notion of identity becomes one of new facial reconstruction.

Video:

 

Eleanor Gates-Stuart – Save Face from ACM SIGGRAPH on Vimeo.


Other Information:


    Collaboration and Communication