Alter Ego is a fascinating project that was just presented at DAC2005 – you sit down at a mirror, and see a computer model of a face. A hidden webcam captures your face and maps it onto the model so that after a few seconds while the computer considers your face, an avatar that looks like your mirror image – but not quite. The avatar in the mirror will then mimic your expressions, showing a mirror image that is you yet not you. Mostly, the avatar will mimic you exactly – but sometimes it will react differently. I would love to play with this!
I'm Jill Walker Rettberg, author and professor of Digital Culture at the University of Bergen in Norway. I co-direct the Center for Digital Narrative, a 10-year Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence, and I lead the ERC project Machine Vision in Everyday Life. This site started as my blog in October 2000.
Kenneth Rufo
Fascinating. I can’t get the link to play right, but as someone very influenced by Levinas’ exposition of the face, I’m completely fascinated. Any idea if the exhibit will be showing elsewhere?