Have you seen this girl?

Several years ago I spent some time working on what I regarded as hybrid faces. They were constructed in Photoshop by overlaying photographs of my face, at various ages over the faces of family members. I was interested in familial facial characteristics and genealogy, since these were utilized in the Eugenics Movement and the science of Physiognomy to identify traits that were considered undesirable in an individual. I later called these images mutant identities. The project grew out of a concern with contemporary issues such as genetic engineering and its ability to modify the human genome in order to construct a more perfect human, and the way that this is also reflected in the growing obsession within our community for perfect bodies. Instead of manipulating the facial images so that the most perfect face was constructed, I purposefully constructed images that drew attention to the imperfections of the faces and those displayed in the photographic surface. I did this in order to valorize difference and challenge the notion of perfection.

Earlier this year I returned to this project by constructing a depiction of a non-existent person by combining two photographs in Photoshop – one of myself when I was young and the other of the boyfriend of an acquaintance of mine, who was a similar age. This integration of self with other at a surface level proved interesting because the aesthetic process involved foregrounding some aspects of his face and mine and back grounding others. Although the process might suggest that both photographs are still concealed within this image, this is not the case, for the image stands on its own as an outcome of a process.

At that time I was also examining the background images of many of my photographs. I scanned the photographs and enlarged minute fragments of the landscape that had become obscured in the photographic process. It was at this time that Heather had called for proposals for the CRACKS IN THE PAVEMENT project. Part of my proposal to her was to highlight things and people that become invisible by organizations and societal structures.

I decided to construct a poster using the image of this imaginary person and pose the question: Have you seen this girl? The format of the art/poster suggests that this particular girl is missing, or has become invisible in our community. The format of the poster intersects with MISSING PERSON posters often constructed by family members to help the general public identify and perhaps locate a missing relative or friend who has ‘fallen through the cracks’. The photographs used on these posters are often of poor quality, taken in the past and don’t necessarily reflect how that person looks at the present time. Photocopying these images to create multiple copies to distribute around the community also degrades the image quality, adding to an image that is inaccurate to begin with. This results in the use of a virtual construct to try to identify and locate an actual person.

This project is concerned with the fluidity of identity, portraiture, surveillance, body modification in technological culture, invisibility, difference, image manipulation, hermeneutics, informatics, gender construction and replication. It invites the public to look closely at the work, to consider the relationships that might be drawn between the image and its placement in spaces, which are sites of transition or contemplation.

This project would not have been possible without the kind assistance of Leonie Cooper, who made herself and her digital camera available to photograph the proposed installation sites for the art/poster, and to my son Erin Powell who bought me a second-hand computer at a most fortuitous time.