Product Description

The human face has been admired, interpreted, disfigured, decorated, puzzled over and reconstructed from earliest times up to the present day. We tattoo them, cover them in makeup, surgically 'improve' them. Artists obsessively paint them, and sculptors create more heads than anything else. But what do faces mean? What are they for? How should we interpret expressions? Does the face indicate personality, as 19th-century scientists believed? What makes our faces unique? Is there such a thing as ideal 'beauty' - or is beauty merely in the eye of the beholder? And how does this translate into the computer-generated world of 'cyber-models', complete with their appealing 'flaws'? Far from the glamour world of facelifts and Botox, science is now embarking on undreamed-of facial reconstruction - a full face transplant will soon be available as the ultimate new identity under the FBI's Witness Protection Program. But what will such drastic surgery do to our perception of others, and of ourselves? The book is published to coincide with the opening of Future Face, a major exhibition at the Science Museum.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #595371 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Sandra Kemp is Director of Research at the Royal College of Art and curator of the Future Face exhibition. Vicki Bruce of the University of Edinburgh is a psychologist specialising in human face recognition. Alf Linney of University College London teaches medical physics.

Customer Reviews

Identity, Evolution, and a Whole New Perspective.
Beautifully photographed images. An interesting and in-depth glance into the past, present and proposed future of our faces. Also looks into the way we read facial expressions. A great all around book.