Project Description
EVOLVING PORTRAIT is an ever-shifting portrait of us. Starting from the question “what if a machine could hold a mirror to our collective unconscious?“, this is an interactive installation that renders a face shaped not by a single identity but by the aggregated desires, fears, and silent biases of its viewers. It evolves in real time, drawing from the intimate data of human interaction: facial recognition, selections, and subtle preferences voiced through answers to quietly provocative questions.
Each participant becomes both observer and sculptor, nudging the portrait toward a new form. The face changes—sometimes almost imperceptibly—with every choice, becoming an uncanny synthesis of collective belief. Beneath its surface lies a living algorithm, where genotype (user data) becomes phenotype (visual form), built through a dialogue between code and human response.
Inspired by a curiosity for the hidden judgments we carry—political, philosophical, or moral—the project becomes a global mirror, a portrait not of who we say we are, but of who we show ourselves to be. It does not accuse, nor does it explain. It simply reflects.
In this interplay between human and machine, EVOLVING PORTRAIT asks: “If a face could learn from us, what would it become?”
Technical Description
It collects each user’s face image and answer data, and converts them into a representing portrait in a receipt format.
It then applies the collected data back to the grid, and constantly accumulates the user-generated portraits.
Interaction
1. Walk up to the device and answer a set of questions
2. The device asks user to take a headshot
3. User waits and checks the resulting collective portrait
