Nancy Burson is, according to The Christiane Paul Article, one of the "pioneers in the field of computer-generated composite photographs" who was one of the first to experiment with the digital morphing of faces. Her work was revolutionary in the 1980's and was the starting block for many industries today that use this form of media art. Burson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1948 and currently lives in New York City as she continues to create art. She is most well-known for her use of digital technology to combine several images of faces and "morph" them into one. According to a web site, she also has used aging techniques as a way of predicting what a person's face might look like many years in the future.
Her art has been used to make a point of racial equality in this example. This photo is from a web site.
This is an example from a web site of one of the products of Nancy Burson's "Age Machine" where she is able to predict what people may look like in the future. This is a prediction of what Julia Roberts may look like in the year 2035.
Nancy Burton's work is both good and bad in our society today. The benefits have helped save lives, but at the same time the effects of variations of this kid of art have corrupted our society. A huge benefit to this type of art, namely the "Age Machine" technique, is that the FBI now has a method that could help them find missing people who, for instance, were abducted as children ten or twenty years ago. These missing children's faces would have changed drastically over the course of ten or twenty years, and Nancy Burton has provided a tool that could increase the chances of finding those missing people by predicting what they might look like now. She earned a patent in 1981 for her method, as is discussed on a web site. Burson's art means that lives can be saved!
Nancy Burton's art has also attributed to the rather recent problem in our society that has to do with body image. People's faces and bodies can now be touched up in countless ways to make them look what the social media defines as "perfect". This may help an ad in selling a product in a magazine or a commercial on TV, but what is it doing to the body image of our society? People now have a standard that they feel they must meet to be considered beautiful. Before Nancy Burton's art, this was less of a problem because the people in the magazines were not digitally altered. Her art means that society now feels a pressure to meet false expectations of beauty.
This is an example of what has stemmed from revolutionary artwork like Burson's that creates a false pretense of beauty in our society, from YouTube.
The quality of Burson's artwork is quite high and has developed over time as technology has advanced. The work she created in the 1980's can be compared with her more recent pieces:
Her artwork is strong in that it has a useful purpose in multiple industries in today's society. It's one weakness, in my opinion, is its contribution to the corrupted expectations of beauty that have been a result of Burson's work.
This is an absolutely fantastic first blog! You did a brilliant job...bravo! A quick question though: you mention people corrupting Burson's original work. Would this have occurred anyway if Burson never created the work she did, or do you think Burson's work heightened the use of 'corrupted expectations' for the 'ideal' beauty?
I find Nancy's Burson's art to be very interesting and unique. It's interesting because its personalized and tailored to someone. She picks a specific actual person and transform them to what they could expect to look like later in life. Also i think its unique because it is an art form that also has practical use in the world outside of art.
After researching Nancy Burson myself, I thought I had a firm grasp on her art. I enjoyed the example you had in the video of how you thought her invention of the digital media morphing technique could be detrimental. I also enjoyed your post of Burson's morphed picture of what Julia Roberts would look like in later years!
This is an absolutely fantastic first blog! You did a brilliant job...bravo!
ReplyDeleteA quick question though: you mention people corrupting Burson's original work. Would this have occurred anyway if Burson never created the work she did, or do you think Burson's work heightened the use of 'corrupted expectations' for the 'ideal' beauty?
I find Nancy's Burson's art to be very interesting and unique. It's interesting because its personalized and tailored to someone. She picks a specific actual person and transform them to what they could expect to look like later in life. Also i think its unique because it is an art form that also has practical use in the world outside of art.
ReplyDeleteAfter researching Nancy Burson myself, I thought I had a firm grasp on her art. I enjoyed the example you had in the video of how you thought her invention of the digital media morphing technique could be detrimental. I also enjoyed your post of Burson's morphed picture of what Julia Roberts would look like in later years!
ReplyDelete