Brian Eno’s Face to Face: A Video Installation That Transforms Familiar Faces into New Humans

Brian Eno’s latest exploration into patterns and their potential for creating unexpected art has taken shape in the form of an installation that transforms still photographs of people’s faces into new ones. Using specially created software, Eno gradually changes each image, almost imperceptibly, to create a long chain of ‘new humans’. This process results in 25 new faces every second and a total of 170 thousand new faces being generated.

In a video released by UNAM Cultural Diffusion, Eno explained that his fascination with transformations seen in pop music videos, superhero movies, and toys like Transformers sparked the creation of this installation. He often uses familiar gadgets in unconventional ways to subvert technology and create something unexpected. The slow change and evolution of the faces in “Face to Face for Mexico” bring Eno great joy as it allows viewers to see a universe of people who never truly existed but could have been.

Eno first created a version of this work in 2003, driven by the idea of “creating” new human beings. His goal was to showcase a world of people who look like real individuals but have never actually existed, exploring the concept of potential alternate realities. This project reflects Eno’s interest in technology and his desire to push its boundaries to create innovative and thought-provoking art.