Merged Faces

Do you recognize this girl and boy that were in the Valley graduating class of ’68? Well, they really didn’t go there but in a way they did. Inspired by the Face of Tomorrow (http://www.faceoftomorrow.com), a series of photographic works by artist Mike Mike, and by Face Research.org (http://www.faceresearch.org/) run by Lisa DeBruine and Ben Jones, experimental psychologists at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, the two faces of these Valley Class of ’68 alumni were created. They were created from the faces of senior classmates’ images and combining each of those faces to create a new individual – someone that doesn’t exist right now but someone it seems quite real – almost familiar.

Quoting from The Face of Tomorrow’s website, "The process of merging the faces and coming up with someone new is really exciting. Archetypal creative stuff. You end up with a new person. Someone who didn't exist before. Someone who doesn't exist now. But someone who is nonetheless quite real."

The two images that were created here used the 26 individual classmates photos surrounding each image and then were merged together to create the one new image. The Face of Tomorrow merged 100 individuals to create the new faces there. If you’re interested in creating your own new face, go to the FaceResearch.org website and you can upload your own images to merge together or try out some of the images already posted on the site. There are also software programs you can purchase such as Fantaface Mixer but the FaceResearch.org website is free.