Future Face
http://www.metamute.org/en/Future-Face
Future Face
Monday, 14 February, 2005 - 00:00
By Laura Sullivan
The Science Museum’s Future Face exhibition claimed to provide a critical take on the culture of superficiality. Laura Sullivan visits and finds in the mirror world of cosmetics, masks and digital image manipulation a reflection of the society of control
> Michael Najjar, Dana_2.2, 1999-2000
The Science Museum’s recent exhibition Future Face gathers an impressive array of images and artifacts and asks compelling questions about this culturally important and visually ubiquitous part of the body. However, Future Face rarely provides answers to such questions and ultimately suffers from a schizophrenia and superficiality all too common in museum exhibitions aimed at mainstream audiences. Given the popularity of the ‘face’ as a topic as well as the current fascination with many of the themes the exhibition highlights, such as surgical makeovers and digital image manipulation, one has to wonder why the curator, visual culture researcher Sandra Kemp, didn’t aim for more depth, focus, and coherent presentation. As the opening textual panel explains; ‘Future Face presents a rich mix of material from anatomy, portraiture, forensics, medicine and popular culture from prehistory to the present day’. The exhibition’s title notwithstanding, this temporal range is coupled with an equally expansive topical scope, as evidenced by the introductory texts for each of the exhibition’s six sections. Future Face introduces the exhibitions’ thematic concerns of the relationship between the face and identity; emotions expressed via the face; artistic and scientific efforts to understand and portray the face; anatomical and biomedical approaches to the face; and moral values attached to the face.
Future Face
Monday, 14 February, 2005 - 00:00
By Laura Sullivan
The Science Museum’s Future Face exhibition claimed to provide a critical take on the culture of superficiality. Laura Sullivan visits and finds in the mirror world of cosmetics, masks and digital image manipulation a reflection of the society of control
> Michael Najjar, Dana_2.2, 1999-2000
The Science Museum’s recent exhibition Future Face gathers an impressive array of images and artifacts and asks compelling questions about this culturally important and visually ubiquitous part of the body. However, Future Face rarely provides answers to such questions and ultimately suffers from a schizophrenia and superficiality all too common in museum exhibitions aimed at mainstream audiences. Given the popularity of the ‘face’ as a topic as well as the current fascination with many of the themes the exhibition highlights, such as surgical makeovers and digital image manipulation, one has to wonder why the curator, visual culture researcher Sandra Kemp, didn’t aim for more depth, focus, and coherent presentation. As the opening textual panel explains; ‘Future Face presents a rich mix of material from anatomy, portraiture, forensics, medicine and popular culture from prehistory to the present day’. The exhibition’s title notwithstanding, this temporal range is coupled with an equally expansive topical scope, as evidenced by the introductory texts for each of the exhibition’s six sections. Future Face introduces the exhibitions’ thematic concerns of the relationship between the face and identity; emotions expressed via the face; artistic and scientific efforts to understand and portray the face; anatomical and biomedical approaches to the face; and moral values attached to the face.
posted by Lucia Leao at 2:37 PM
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