1st Edition
The Hybrid Face Paradoxes of the Visage in the Digital Era
This original and interdisciplinary volume explores the contemporary semiotic dimensions of the face from both scientific and sociocultural perspectives, putting forward several traditions, aspects, and signs of the human utopia of creating a hybrid face.
The book semiotically delves into the multifaceted realm of the digital face, exploring its biological and social functions, the concept of masks, the impact of COVID-19, AI systems, digital portraiture, symbolic faces in films, viral communication, alien depictions, personhood in video games, online intimacy, and digital memorials. The human face is increasingly living a life that is not only that of the biological body but also that of its digital avatar, spread through a myriad of new channels and transformable through filters, post-productions, digital cosmetics, all the way to the creation of deepfakes. The digital face expresses new and largely unknown meanings, which this book explores and analyzes through an interdisciplinary but systematic approach.
The volume will interest researchers, scholars, and advanced students who are interested in digital humanities, communication studies, semiotics, visual studies, visual anthropology, cultural studies, and, broadly speaking, innovative approaches about the meaning of the face in present-day digital societies.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
1. Masked Faces: A Tale of Functional Redeployment between Biology and Material Culture
Marco Viola
2. Contagious Faces: Coping Digitally with the Pandemic by Means of Memes
Gabriele Marino
3. Uncertain Faces: An Investigation into Visual Forms for Communicating Otherness
Cristina Voto
4. Simulacral Faces: A Dramaturgy in Digital Environments
Enzo D’Armenio
5. Emerging Faces: The Figure-Ground Relation from Renaissance Painting to Deepfakes
Maria Giulia Dondero
6. Timely Faces
Antonio Dante Santangelo
7. Featureless Faces: A Film Aesthetics
Bruno Surace
8. Imaginary Faces: Aliens, Monsters, and Otherness
Remo Gramigna
9. Automatic Faces: The Transcendent Visage of Trans-Humanity
Gianmarco Thierry Giuliana
10. Algorithmic Faces: Reflections on the Visage in Artistic Translation and Transition
Silvia Barbotto
11. Dating Faces: The Facial Space of Belonging in Online (Dating) Communities
Elsa Soro
12. Evanescent Faces: A Semiotic Investigation of Digital Memorials and Commemorative Practices
Federico Bellentani
13. References
Biography
Massimo Leone is Professor of Philosophy of Communication at the University of Turin; Research Director at the “Bruno Kessler Foundation”, Trento; part-time Professor of Semiotics at the University of Shanghai; associate member of Cambridge Digital Humanities; and Adjunct Professor at the UCAB University of Caracas. He is the PI of ERC Projects FACETS (2019) and EUFACETS (2022).
