"Your Face is Not You": The Human Face and Visual Technologies

This thesis presents an analysis of the relationship between the human face and visual technology, from just before the invention of photography up to the present day. The face is generally seen as the natural site of human identity and emotional expression, but these associations typically obscure the complex and subtle roles that media technologies play in framing the way that we experience and understand both our own faces and those of others. Each chapter addresses a different set of visual technologies, seeking to address the specific ways in which each tends to inflect the values and meanings we attach to faces in different ways. Overall, the project builds towards an understanding of the face as a political technology used to shape and organise human subjectivity.