English artist Lorna Barnshaw has created some of the most unusual self-portraits yet. Using different computer applications, software and 3D printing methods, Barshaw moves away from the conventional in order to create replicas of her face that are both digital and physical, life-like yet artificial. The series, “Replicants,” is repulsive and yet fascinating as we see ourselves through a medium thought to be flawless. The masks resemble realistic human characteristics, nonetheless they still imply decay, and an artificiality that is hard to ignore.
Some of her pieces are modified through Autodesk, which turns photographs into 3D models to be printed. The outcome is a series of manipulated facial characteristics that are unusually shaped representations of themselves. Other pieces used the program Cubify, which highly abstracts, and generates geometric reinterpretation of the human face.
Influenced by our technology-obsessed society, Barnshaw’s work explores the constant supply of digital advances and their assimilation to the error-driven, daily human life. With her work, she defies digital perfection, as she creates parallels between the computers’ glitches to human error.
