“Q’s Views #1 – #3: Hybrid-Image Portraits for the Post-Truth Era” presented by Nishino
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A hybrid image is an image synthesized from two source images in such a way that viewers perceive one of the source images when viewed up close but perceive the other source image when viewed from a distance. An on-going visual sarcasm series, Q’s Views #1-#3, utilizes this perceptual illusion with the aim of letting the audience visually experience the estrangement between believers and non-believers of conspiracy theories in the post-truth era.
The current series consists of three portraits of Hillary Clinton, each of which is synthesized as a hybrid image from two “fake” portraits. One is AI-generated and the other is transformed from the first. The resulting image is perceived as a regular portrait of Hillary Clinton when viewed at a distance. Yet, as the viewer approaches closer, the portrait transforms, revealing a grotesque depiction of Hillary Clinton as portrayed by conspiracy theorists.
Thus, as viewers approach near to the portrait beyond the threshold of visual perception of the hybrid image, the artwork triggers a sudden realization that conspiracy the-orists perceive Hillary Clinton as an entirely different person. Such a transformation of an image highlights the insurmountable divergence in perceived realities between believers and non-believers of conspiracy theories. How-ever, even the “regular” portraits are AI-generated fabrica-tions, rendering them as fake images devoid of authentici-ty. Hence, as works of visual sarcasm, Q’s Views #1-#3 refer to this post-truth era, where AIs are used to produce high-fidelity images for fake news and propaganda, sig-nificantly increasing the alienation and division of per-ceived realities in the same world we share.
