The face has had a privileged status in visual media, rapture (Epstein, Barthes), paradox (Aumont, Doane), absorption & intensity (Deleuze). Yet, at the same time the mediated face reveals some hidden truth (Belász), it conceals and deceives (Steimatsky). (…) This lecture starts by looking at how films like Persona… (…) Face2Face or the “Synthesizing Obama” project treat the face as an interface between a database of expressions and a virtual canvas that can be animated and reanimated. Cf pdf.
