2014-2015
photographic series
The right of likeness is something that has long troubled everyone with a camera, especially with the widespread use of social media and digital image sharing. The inspiration for this project came from Michael Haneke's film "Code Unknown", where a photographer secretly takes pictures of passengers on a train. The artist adopted a similar surreptitious approach to capture subjects on Berlin trains. In contemporary society, publicly displaying photographs of people's faces without their consent is no longer acceptable. To navigate this ethical challenge, the artist utilised various techniques to obscure the identities of their subjects, including shadows, compositional manipulation, and digital processing. The objective was to create a visual language that regulates and alters the codes associated with personal appearance such as facial features, clothing, and movements.
The purpose of this project was to question the extent to which outward appearance defines an individual's identity. The artist manipulated identifiable elements and emphasised personal qualities such as clothing and personal effects in others. By digitally processing pixel-based data, the notion of what constitutes an identifiable likeness was challenged, especially with technology's rapid evolution. The diverse cultural makeup of Berlin's public transport system provided a rich source of inspiration for the foreign artist. This series offers a thought-provoking exploration of the right of likeness, the role of personal appearance in shaping our identities, and the ways in which technology is shaping our relationship with the visual world. By obscuring and manipulating the codes associated with personal appearance, the artist encouraged viewers to question their assumptions about identity and the ethics of visual representation in the digital age.