︎                 Marine One



Gaze, 2021, installation
Fabric, balloon and thread

A fundamental aspect of my work is to render it uncanny, provoking discomfort while eliciting humor, in order to achieve visual impact and create a memorable impression. In this regard, this project succeeded in captivating the audience and evoking an unsettling sensation, albeit one accompanied by laughter.

The use of velvet serves to accentuate the disconcerting nature of their stares directed at the audience, yet it also paradoxically generates a friendly effect. A noteworthy comment from one of my peers regarding this work was, "I am feeling the exact same way as when men stare at me." This comment was pivotal as it prompted me to recognize that this could be a means to grant the artwork its own agency and gaze, mirroring the spectator's individual agency and gaze.

All the faces featured in this project were sourced from the website thispersondoesntexist.com, which relies on a Style-based generative adversarial network (StyleGAN). The images of people displayed on this website are AI-generated, drawn from a vast pool of samples, and do not actually represent real individuals. However, their anonymity and the sense of déjà vu they induce is intriguing. This familiarity makes one believe they've encountered someone similar before, evoking a sense of sympathy towards these synthetic faces.