Portrait Mode

Contains works created between 2016 and 2022 by Ben Mendelewicz, known for his bizarre and distorted artwork. A collection of facial art that has been transformed until it is no longer recognized by facial recognition algorithms. Printed with UV reflective ink that glows in response to black light.


Portrait Mode is 41 arrays of iterative, digitally composited portraiture made from 2016 through 2022.

Starting in 2016, I began using a private Facebook page as a platform to test facial recognition on composited faces. I would construct a straightforward portrait and continue to upload distorted generations until the Facebook facial recognition algorithm could no longer detect a human. This amassed 10 -30 portraits reassemble the same person becoming increasingly less recognizable as face.

As the project developed, it grew into a looser repository for portraiture, imagining an inevitable evolution of the human face: A climate in which accessorizing and body modification are necessary to avoid likeness and identity harvesting.

The array format is modeled after Haar cascades, the algorithm used in original real time face detection software. These layouts incidentally resemble other visual datasets like forensic lineups, character studies, social media avatars and the version grids that result from generative image models.

The 48 page book is digitally printed with UV reactive fluorescent CMYK throughout.

9 x 12"
48 pages
Saddle-stitched
Edition of 160
August 2023