“all around me are familiar faces” is a virtual reality experience that immerses the user in a dimly lit environment, filled with clones of the artist’s 3D scanned face. Around the centre area, new faces pop-up randomly, accompanied by eerie drones as well as by breathing and crackling sounds, while others float on a watery dark floor. During the experience, the user can freely move and look around but is constantly “watched” and followed by a cloud of faces that continuously obstruct the view. Similar faces are attached to each of the virtual controllers. By pressing the trigger button and moving the controllers, the user can clone the faces and is able to create three-dimensional sculptures with them. The pressure strength used on the trigger button determines the scale of the clones: stronger pressure results in bigger faces. Every time a user takes the HMD off, the virtual sculptures created disappear, cleaning the space for a new experience.
In “all around me are familiar faces” the artist’s face exists simultaneously as a virtual self-portrait and as a tool for creation. The artist’s identity multiplies and vanishes, becoming a virtual three-dimensional brush for everyone else to use and reinvent.