The first image we perceive at birth is the blurred face of our mother.
The brain is accustomed to and structurally designed for reading the faces that surround us. So much so, that we project faces where none exist—a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia, in which we interpret random images or environmental patterns as facial features. We discern faces in the shapes of wispy clouds, along the high ridges of mountains, or in the whimsical patterns of damp patches at home. The capacity to interpret faces is an evolutionary adaptation that historically favored those individuals capable of identifying the mental states (joy, anger, sadness, etc.) of others.
Theory of mind is a term employed in the cognitive sciences to denote the ability to attribute thoughts and intentions to other people. It is a concept that endows the subject with the capacity to understand and reflect upon both their own mental state and that of others. Evolutionarily, attributing a mental state to other humans is linked to face reading; directly and philosophically, it is tied to the mind-brain problem, or the hard problem of consciousness. This question refers to the difficulty of explaining how the physical and electrochemical activity of the brain generates subjective experience (qualia)—that is, sensations, feelings, and, above all, self-awareness: being conscious of being conscious.
According to William James's definition, consciousness is the prolonged and coherent flow through time that unifies us as individuals and provides a profound sense of identity. Although terms like mind, consciousness, or psyche are not strictly synonymous, they inevitably evoke the traditional concepts of soul and spirit.
The dualistic view of the human being as comprised of an eternal soul and a mortal body still persists, despite having been challenged by recent scientific discoveries. One might recall Antonio Damasio’s book Descartes' Error, or the philosophical current of existentialism itself, which refutes the notion that essence can precede existence. Neurologist Roberto Llinás in I of the Vortex.The Brain and the Myth of the Self and philosopher Thomas Metzinger in The Ego Tunnel describe self-identity as a functional state or a neural construction. This construction allows the organism to perceive itself as a highly integrated entity, thereby facilitating the planning and control of actions. This monistic and materialistic perspective has gained dominance in contemporary philosophical movements and in promising scientific studies of consciousness, such as Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory, Bernard Baars' Global Neural Workspace Theory, or Georg Northoff's Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness.
"The face is the mirror of the soul," the ancients used to say, and they were wrong. The late poet David González is far wiser when he writes: "the face is the mirage of the soul." The atavistic meaning of portraiture is based on an apparent correspondence between face and individual, between appearance and identity—and, above all, on the belief in the existence of a persistent, unique, and immutable soul.
The original definition of portraiture implies the depiction of a specific individual recognized by their facial likeness and resemblance, usually titled with the subject's name. Conventional portraiture contemplates the presentation of a single face as the representation of a single, immutable subject. Ultimately, every portrait is a consensual fiction—a narrative about the identity of the self. The true subject intended for representation will always reside elsewhere, never on the surface of their face.
Portraiture aims for a certain morphological unity and is sustained by the concept of an immobile identity. Nietzsche already challenged this notion and the "belief in the Subject-Self." The subject is the fiction that numerous identical states within us are, in fact, a single one. The fragmentation of the contemporary self and the disintegration of being would require more than one face to account for the complex nature of the subject.
"The face is a mask, and masks are extensions of a face," writes Mario Satz. When we refer to a mask, we refer once again to the fiction of the self. It is worth recalling the etymological origin of persona. The term, derived from Latin, refers to the theatrical mask used by actors and is linked to the verb personare, as it also served to project the voice. The concept of the person expresses the singularity of each individual of the human species; yet, when we portray a person, we are in truth portraying one of their masks. We seek to capture a human being forever, yet we portray only a fleeting shadow.
Perhaps this is why the portrait is viewed as an issue of the past within contemporary currents of art and thought. Paradoxically, we do not cease to take portrait photos and selfies, or to view hundreds of unfamiliar faces on social networks—an oversaturation that induces a certain loss of meaning regarding the face.
The writer Pedro Zarraluki noted that to learn how to write, one must learn how to produce good portraits. The same could be said of photography. Great photographers operate much like great writers, succeeding in conveying truths through lies or fiction. Nevertheless, a good portrait maintains a relationship with truth, or with a certain possibility of truth. From the individual, a portrait narrates the commonalities of human nature. There is truth and beauty in portrait photography. There is always a profound inquiry into the individual and the transience of existence.
The works selected here under the theme The Face as a Map: The Fragmentation of the Contemporary Self help us to think and reflect, through the genre of portraiture, on the enigma of the face, on the diverse cultural and historical sources of the self, and on the difficulties of scientifically understanding the subjective experience of consciousness, while simultaneously exposing the political and psychological pitfalls of any personal identity, whether chosen or imposed.