TTF 2021 - Peak Face

Peak Face / Предел Лица
peakface.strel...
M.C. Abbott (US) | María Buey González (ES) | Carl Olsson (SE)
Terraforming is the process of intelligence transforming its surroundings at the scale of the planet. Peak Face proposes that the terraforming has a period that has been marked by an abundance of faces. The face started out as an evolutionary adaptation that collected sensory organs at the front-ends of animals. Its period of relevance began around the Cambrian Explosion (~541 mya) and has lasted until now. From this perspective, the face was a platform for changing the environment long before it became an indicator of human identity.
Since the facial age has a determinate starting date, we can anticipate that it’s also going to end at some point in the future. It may even be that we are at the threshold of a post-facial age of the terraforming, where facelessness and alternative media of social cognition (or intelligence) become increasingly important in the reshaping of the surface of the Earth.
This provocation covers the origins of the facial age of the terraforming; the ways in which the strange collection of sensory organs at the front-ends of most animal species has shaped the Earth; and why the face’s role may be about to change.
Credits:
The project was developed during The Terraforming 2021 at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, Russia theterraformin...
Project team: M.C. Abbott, María Buey González, Carl Olsson
Program Directors: Benjamin H. Bratton, Nicolay Boyadjiev
Additional Credits:
Music by Miradasvacas (Pablo Mirón and Juan Vacas)
Sound editing: Cooper Dylan
Special thanks:
Jussi Parikka
Abelardo Gil-Fournier
Amanda Beech
Anders Sandberg
Blaise Agüera y Arcas
Ryan Bishop
Lucía Tahan
Jil Crary-Ross
Fernando Valentí
Grigory Chernomordik