Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the differences/ similarities between the face as a digital byproduct and the face as a crafted artefact. My analysis is based on fieldwork in two cleft lip and/palate clinics in Stockholm and Asunción.

Paper Abstract:

The face has arguably been transformed by the emergence of the “digital;” it’s in focus on platforms like Snapchat and Zoom; vast databases of “digital” faces fuel facial recognition technologies, and movie industries scan faces to own digital copies. Unsurprisingly, the face is commonly illustrated as one divided into data points. However, despite the digital rendering of the face I will use this opportunity to think about the differences between knowing the face through digital means and knowing the face through craft. My work is situated in two clinics treating cleft lip and/palate patients in Stockholm and Asunción. Although digital renderings of the face were to the team’s disposal, no tools that revealed digital data points were used during the surgery or orthodontic intervention. Rather experience based perception and analogue tools were used; the surgeon judged the gradient of their cut by modelling with a scissor, sketched midlines by knowing the landmarks of the face, touched the face, and shaped the face with tools like hammers, wedges, and chisels. Building off M’chareks and Shramm’s work on the face as multiple (2020), I want to explore the differences between the face as a digital byproduct and the face as a crafted artefact. I argue that thinking about the face through different modalities and especially between the digital and “not-so-digital”, offer new ways to unpack the face and what it does.