Heba Amin: The Most EVIL Person in the WORLD
Bush's state of the union address in 2002 which coined the ridiculous phrase "axis of evil" opened endless opportunities for art-making. The phrase resurfaced for me with the latest outpour of idiotic headlines regarding Ahmadinejad's US visit:
"EVIL HAS LANDED"......
I was interested in creating a composite of the leaders of the six evil countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea) to create the ultimate EVIL! My first approach was to extract a group of pixels from each image (using the "drunk" object so that they are grouped together), output them in a new matrix, and create a new image consisting of pixels from all six original images. The end result is an abstract, unrecognizable face.
The second approach was to extract portions of each of the six original matrices, output them as matrix layers in the new matrix. The "srcdimstart" object and the "srcdimend" object were used to specify the coordinates of the matrix from the original image, and the "dstdimstart" and "dstdimend" to specify the location in the new matrix. The end result is a collage made up of squares of the different parts of the six EVIL leaders. This approach creates a more recognizable face than the first. I also incorporated the option to view the layering collage in color or black and white, as well as the option for the user to freeze the frame and/or delete the image to start over, allowing the user to participate in the making of the new faces.
(doesn't this oddly look like Bush?)
The initial concept was to create humorous combinations of faces as a way to stress the silliness of the idea of the "axis of evil". But other concepts started to surface, more meaningful, and more serious ones that could be explored further. Among them is this idea of how do we put a face on the word evil? What attributes create an evil person? Who can be evil? It started to raise this issue of surveillance and how we can pinpoint evil among regular people. This could make for an interesting facial profiling project.
Comments
Great work Heba.
I am particularly fond of the completed images from the first attempt, the scattered drunk pixelated faces. With the second, the video doesn't show the fading version; was that an artistic decision no your part?
Posted by: Ali | October 3, 2007 5:37 PM