For the past two years, photographer Inanis has been making a series of photographic montages of half-faces of members of the same family in order to study their physical resemblance. He has also realized that the resemblance of half-faces forces the resemblance of members of the same family, regardless of generational differences, crossbreeding, etc. A resemblance that was not immediately apparent.
His work is striking.
Selection of photos from the exhibition #genetics of the photographer Inanis @inanis_photo. The faces are assemblages of half-faces of brother/sister, mother/daughter, grandfather/son, etc. If the resemblances are striking on each recomposed face, they were not at first glance for two distinct photos. Here the artistic composition shows how our brain processes faces.
Many questions about the perceptual processing of faces came up, and we had a very interesting chat.
First of all, when faced with two half-faces, the brain seems to analyze them as it would any other face, according to a precise coding of the location of the relevant clues (space between the eyes, nose, mouth etc - very basic). However, our brain will quickly detect the visual disparities and recognize that it is, in fact, two faces. Thus, the closer the visual clues are to each other, the more the brain is able to compare them (contrary to the many eye movements imposed by two separate faces): it therefore recognizes the disparities but will more easily recognize the similarities! Moreover, when faced with a face, our brain has a tendency to 'erase' irrelevant disparities (for example, a face is never completely symmetrical but our brain acts as such).
Is there a hemispheric processing of faces? Few studies are conclusive. Generally speaking, when we speak of a hemispheric specialty in neuroscience, we are talking about a local processing of the right or left hemisphere. It's a question of territories: to the question "were there parts of the brain that were preferentially processed on the face" the answer is yes, but in both hemispheres. Both hemispheres receive about the same information from each eye and they cooperate through many 'cables' (corpus callosum). In vision, the difference between the two cerebral hemispheres is usually in the quality of the treatment (intensity of response, speed, concordance with other specialized areas such as language, emotions, etc.).
It is a good idea to experiment: cancelling binocular vision, either by separating the visual field in the middle of the eyes or by hiding one eye. And present the images quickly, asking the subject to answer whether or not the half-faces are similar. You would know whether or not one side has an influence depending on the response time.
To observe the artist's work:
Exhibition #genetics at the gallery @parlezmoiphoto
17, rue Henry Monnier 75009 Paris
January 2020 @genetics_photo
I N A N I S P H O T O G R A P H E
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Website: www.inanisphotographe.com
Facebook : inanis.photo
Twitter: @inanis_photo
GI : @inanis_