ID 2.100.

2023
#VirtualPhotography #InGamePhotography
#Photomaton #ePhoto
10 × 15 cm

#ID 2.100. sets the current: the #UNHCR2022 report on one hundred million displaced bodies triggers a #Photomaton booth: between its laminated shell and the flickering #PixelMatrix opens a gap where documentary and fiction swap faces.

During #AvatarCreation the editor of World of Warcraft sets skin tones, GTA Online shadows trace capillaries, the cubic profile of Minecraft carves relief. In neighbours Second Life, Roblox, Lineage II, Black Desert, every head is foreshadowed by a wartime #Photojournalism portrait. The cursor repeats cheek lines, hue, microscopic scar; an #Avatar dense with memories of flight glides into molten #Metaverse.

A coin clinks in the #ePhoto slot; #ResidenceMode is chosen and the screen dies for three breaths. In the dark glass floats a nameless oval: the digital mask demands eye alignment and the artist feeds it a pixel double. Flash, scent of hot #ThermalPaper. Dull click — server echo. The #FacialRecognitionModule encrypts the oval, relays it through the #ServerBridge to the #ANEF registry; the shot gains an ID, future #ResidencePermit for the avatar.

The apparatus logs the rite; the pulse of #Bureaucracy taps in bursts. Each rescan strengthens noise, every JPEG crunches edges — artefacts multiply like stamps, spiralling into a #ScanFractal. Beneath #Code the crust cracks, #Image bleeds; booth — accent, server — echo.

In #Foucault’s revision blooms #PostPassportControl: body redundant, variable remains. Signature replaces palm, #Algorithm rewrites biography. #Materiality vies for sunlight; #Memory shards scatter; channels haul #Data. Infra-red diodes thicken #Surveillance, shaping sharp #DigitalSubjectivity and #IdentityPolitics. The hybrid medium widens #HybridMedia, forcing the grammar of #VisualCulture, testing #Authenticity.

The technical string is stretched by #GameEngines and #ImageProcessing; the meaning speaks of #Migration lived as #Displacement. What began mask becomes document opening a border: the union of #ArtAndTechnology comments on the #RefugeeCrisis. Frame — ping.

From digit ⤳ to skin ⤳ to document.

From darkness ⤳ to flash ⤳ to print.

From escape ⤳ to signal ⤳ to breath.

#MaximZmeyev