Self Portrait / Computational Object 1

Self Portrait / Computational Object 1 (2024) investigates subjectivity as a computational construct, interrogating how contemporary image-production systems reconfigure the ontology of the self. The work originates from a photogrammetric self-scan acquired through Reality Scan App, a mobile tool typically designed for rapid object digitization in gaming, architecture, or commercial 3D asset production. By appropriating this utilitarian software for self-representation, the work intentionally misuses a technical instrument optimized for efficiency and accuracy. The resulting 3D reconstruction exposes gaps, distortions, and spatial inconsistencies — not as technical failures, but as epistemological ruptures. As Vilém Flusser argues in Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985), technical images are products of apparatuses that pre-program the conditions of visibility. In this work, the body is revealed as a dataset shaped by the operational logic of the device. The portrait ceases to function as likeness and becomes instead a navigable computational topology. In a second phase, the same dataset is processed through Runway, a generative AI platform commonly used for commercial content creation, visual enhancement, and cinematic effects. Again, the software is used against its typical production-oriented logic: instead of refining or beautifying the image, the intervention is minimal and devoid of stylistic presets. The AI autonomously re-encodes the fragmented geometry through probabilistic inference. The machine attempts to “repair” abstraction by projecting recognizable morphologies — vegetal structures, architectural textures, organic materials — revealing what Trevor Paglen describes as the operational aesthetics of machine vision (Invisible Images, 2016). The algorithm does not see; it predicts. It reconnects data to realism through statistical resemblance. In this tension between dataset and prediction, the self emerges as unstable and continuously reconstructed. Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg (A Cyborg Manifesto, 1985) resonates here: identity is not fixed but assembled within technological infrastructures. The portrait becomes a site of negotiation between embodied subjectivity and algorithmic modeling. Rather than presenting AI as a creative collaborator, the piece exposes the infrastructural conditions under which subjectivity is computationally rendered, interpreted, and simulated. The sound composition reflects the image's spatial structure. Within the frame, the artist’s body occupies approximately 20% of the visual field, while the surrounding mapped environment expands across the remaining 80%. The audio responds to this imbalance: rather than centering on the human figure, the sonic layer is constructed from planetary mapping frequencies derived from NASA data archives. These frequencies — originally used to sonify planetary movements and spatial data — reinforce the conceptual analogy between the self and a satellite orbiting a larger planetary body. The figure functions as a suspended object within a gravitational field, echoing the logic of computational mapping and orbital motion. The soundscape therefore positions the subject not as a center, but as a moving satellite within a broader spatial system — mirroring the computational reconstruction of the body as an object circulating within data space.