Mankind, Nancy Burson, 1983-85
A digital artist of great importance is undoubtedly Nancy Burson. She was born in St. Louise, Missouri in 1948. After she finished painting in Colorado in the late 1960's she moved to New York City and went on to work through Experiments in Art and Technology. Through this program Nancy was allowed to collaborate with researchers from MIT in the development of a program that could manipulate the characteristics of peoples faces. This allowed Burson to map out how people would look throughout their lifespan and upon further work on the program it gave Burson the ability to make composite portraits like Mankind (above) and Warhead (below). Mankind is a composite of Asian, Black and Caucasian faces while Warhead is composite of Ronald Reagan, Brezhnev and several other politicians. She continued making composites for artistic purposes but also used composites to aid in the location of missing children whose facial features may have changed through time.
Nancy's work has changed in structure and purpose throughout the expansion of her career. Pieces like Warhead, Mankind and the Beauty Composites allowed for a unique new perspective on the classic portrait. Never before had anyone had a program such as hers. Mankind is the first of many composites that Nancy made in where it appears she attempted to use technology to overcome the boundaries of different races and ethnicities. Later on she made many human composites that combined the features of men and women to find the a composite for each gender separately and together. By combining the facial features of female actresses Nancy expresses the standards of beauty in our society. Thus, the clear focus of her work was on how the face is a symbol for many things, almost as if it were a mask.
In regards to her medium, Nancy was truly a pioneer. The program she developed with her friends from MIT was remarkable and as was mentioned in the article it's techniques allowed for humanistic composite sketches to be made. This is an important aspect to her career because it draws heavily from the Christiane Paul's concept of using digital technologies as a tool. By aiding in the search of lost children or convicted felons Nancy Burson took the composite portrait to a new realm in which it had applicable use and purpose in society. Christiane Paul wrote about how digital media can allow the observer to see the art as a real person (e.g. a person dancing in a video). Nancy's updated portraits of lost children force to see the artists rendition of the children as the real deal. That is to say her composite work allows the viewer to see the art as an actual portrait of someone even though it is hypothetical. Her ability to composite portraits has made her an invaluable artist of the digital age.
While I definitely see the value behind Burson's artistic approach to composite portraits, I am even more drawn to the real world application of composite portraits in aiding in the search for lost children. Artistic expression is necessary for a creatively driven and interesting world. However, if this expression can be manipulated to serve in overcoming real life issues, I applaud and admire it.
ReplyDeleteBurson's integration of cutting edge technology and art is really fascinating, and it's especially wonderful that Burson was able to find a concrete way to aid a serious societal problem through her art. I find her compiled images haunting; they are both oddly familiar and alien; as they combine recognizable characteristics in unexpected ways.
ReplyDeleteYes, Nancy made a program which its purpose was to contest the ideal of beauty, but that now serves as entertainment, a type of surveillance. Burson never knew her art would be so helpful past her years.
ReplyDeleteI have seen composite portraits before, but they have always appeared fuzzy and clearly were not an image of a real person. I really like that Burson created images that could easily have been a person, especially in her "Warhead" piece. Her commentary that so many politicians are really all he same is very powerful.
ReplyDeleteI really like Nancy Burson's work and the program. It is really interesting to see the combination of different faces. My favorite one was the picture of the asian, black and caucasian faces because it shows equality and a melting pot of different races. The combination of the different political leaders was also very interesting and creative.
ReplyDelete