created 2024-08-10, $=dv.current().file.ctime & modified, =this.modified
tags:disguises #2024
At least it hides the face partly well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.[3]
That line, everything we see hides another thing. It’s like that straight line path challenge, to reach a destination as the crow flies. We find layers of obstacles.
My monitor right now as I type this conceals some boxes, which conceal the wall, which conceal the bushes, which conceal… What is the universal backdrop? The lowest layer.
Study reveals disguises are surprisingly effective
Superficial but deliberate changes in someone’s facial appearance – such as a new hairstyle or complexion - are surprisingly effective in identity deception, new research suggests.
Halloween
Let’s say you are at a Halloween party on Halloween. You decide to go without a costume, so you are yourself for Halloween. By you being yourself on this day, there is a greater chance that you could actually be anyone else simply in costume as yourself. So on Halloween your actual identity is less, even if you are yourself as in every other day.
You could always just be someone else being you
NOTE
Is there some overlap here with a personal birthday masking a holiday, like having your birthday on Christmas? What is your birthday gift and what is your Christmas gift? Is your birthday less?
Game Faces
In the N64 era of 3D games often you’d see faces that were scans of the developers. Even now enemies in games are given only a few variants for faces. You might go the entire game simply killing the equivalent same face over and over, or with a simple mask such as a helmet on, to disguise this.
Mount Rushmore
Without maintenance, Mount Rushmore will erode into unrecognizability in 7.2 million years.
Guitarist Face/Flamenco
One thing that’s common with musicians, particularly vocalists but guitarists as well, is performance face. With a singer it’s understandable because the voice comes from the face (yeah, lungs/mind and other parts but the face communicates the most externally the process, mouth shape, eyes).
There is a counter quote I came upon a few times here, “Lorca writes: “The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, ‘The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation.”
Lorca, in his lecture, quotes Manuel Torre: “everything that has black sounds in it, has duende.” (i.e. emotional ‘darkness’) … ” I take this to mean that this “duende” (to be elaborated) is more of a mysterious, full, felt process and not just a product (the face).
What I noticed about my performances early on, compared to the songs that I was learning was that there was none of this, just focus on the instrument. Partially, because I feel if I were expressing anything it would feel inauthentic. I’m also performing to a limited audience. But still I was wondering what was going on because the performances that I was emulating the songs for that resonated with me had somewhat inscrutable emotions that were initially culturally jarring. I could not avoid the faces and the movement outside of the guitar.
Reading more about the history of flamenco, there’s so much oppression of marginalized groups and particularly I viewed concerts or live performances at their best as a kind of collective emotion release. And extrapolating that as a function of live music in general. A whole book worth of dance meaning, and mixed origins etc.
I did look into this phenomenon of “faces” when performing a bit more. One subject was saying was that the faces are almost like a kind of emotional “tuning” that is occurring, as if its this dynamic requirement for emotion. The song cannot be performed correctly, without that emotion - it allows the performer to reach that space of the song.
NOTE
> What is transmitting and what is entertaining?
Smiling at the camera? Shallow? Flamenco, the concept is transmitir.
What transmitting specifically is, you feel what is being played a lot. You feel the feeling directly from the player. You should be able to close your eyes and feel what is trying to be told. A difficult skill.
I find this even more interesting for guitar(toque in fla,menco)/dance(baile in flamenco) than cante (you know, 3 parts of flamenco) because when singing the face must be mapped to the instrument, because it is part of the instrument directly. It makes you wonder if a face can be detected in an audio only recording of a guitarist (like in the way you can hear a smile at times). A kind of emotional or even physical paralysis that would make a song impossible to sing, or produce a different improvisation.
In middle school and high school probably one of my most influential bands were “At The Drive-In”. Their live shows were basically chaos and definitely had salsa-punk vibes. I recall hearing their guitarist hated guitar so he would find any way possible to abuse it and improperly use it, later embracing effect pedals. Bringing this up for a kind of schizo/duende performance analogy.
When trying for Bulerías it was initially very difficult for me. I won’t delude myself to thinking any level of mastery but I have ingrained the Compás, (generally 12 beats, starting on 12 accents on 3,6(or7),8,10 and 12 with a flourish on 10). That Andalusian Cadence (the characteristic chord progression you picked up on) also provides the “flavor”. Bulerías is great because it has that split of the beat, almost like a polyrhythm where it trips you up expectantly and never quite reaches where it is going, always pushing forward.
Duende Imps
I always try to find a folklore thread, and did here with aforementioned Duende. What got me wondering with these faces, and I haven’t looked it up yet, but there must be a connection between “guitar” faces and this idea of possession, or selling your soul to the devil (etc blues). Just thinking of the contorted faces and the music’s ability to drive an individual into grouped motion. I wonder if there is a connection there.
According to the RAE dictionary (1956!) The “duende” in Andalusia is a “mysterious and ineffable charm”, a charisma that the Gitanos call duende. Federico García Lorca, in his lecture Teoría y juego del duende confirms this ineffability of the duende by defining it with the following words from Goethe: “Mysterious power that everyone feels and that no philosopher explains”. In the flamenco imaginary, the duende goes beyond technique and inspiration, in Lorca’s words “To search for the duende there is no map or exercise”. When a flamenco artist experiences the arrival of this mysterious charm, the expressions “have duende” or sing, play or dance “with duende” are used.
(I think this duende could be linked with Survey of Shadows without much a stretch. Duende is a part of folklore, like an imp. “mischievous spirit inhabiting a dwelling”, duen en casa - wondering if the controversial house elf from HP linked here, linked from previous English elf lore)
[This performance](https://youtu.be/SS7RI06e5D0?list=RDMMSS7RI06e5D0&t=225) is very interesting. Siguiriya, one of the palos dealing with love, loss, sickness, dying, lamentations. It was interesting to me because of the emotions on the faces of the performance, which I found kind of inscrutable. It’s an amazing song and I am trying to learn it right now.
Next is Claudia “La Debla”, watch her face here. Almost reminds me of Kabuki Theatre.
Cat
I had this distressing dream involving a cat. Growing up we had this black cat named Mia. I once had a nightmare that I was in this warehouse, with hundreds and hundreds of black cats. Mia had been placed in this warehouse and was somewhere in the mix.
I wondered if I could find her. Given a couple of different cats, I could clearly point out Mia and certainly she’d show a personality that I could associate with her. But since I am human, and she is a cat — I am unsure in the case of thousands. Would it be possible in this case to completely lose her? I couldn’t even really use her familiarity or openness as a gauge, since there must be a cat who is similar to her, black and open by default.
But what might work would be this and they beautiful things.
One, if I were excluded from the scenario, she’d be fearful. If I were close, she’d know me and come out.
Two, Mia is black but not fully perfect black. There’s an characteristic white splotch on her lower side. This isn’t visible unless she is comfortable with you, flipping over like a kitten for a pet.
NOTE
Thought mix via Transfiguration of the Commonplace by Danto. Have a gallery of hundreds of people creating their own art, that is just red painted square on canvas. They must come out to superficially resemble one another.
“it is widely appreciated that resemblance, even exact resemblance of pairs of things does not make one an imitation of the other…”
Calvino:
You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.”
John Updike:
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation.
Impressions
It seems impressions are all there are. Your persona, your mask. People don’t really engage with something you make, or even watch it. They go through it quickly (because why not, they have a life to live and you are just a small part of it.) But they see something, say a movie you made and they like it, without watching it. You have an impression, and you give your approval. You’re not necessarily rating the project itself, but an aspect of how you appraise the person in relation to the art.
I’d imagine that watching a thing like a youtube video, start to finish, possibly even listening to a song as well, to completion is now something that is rare.
Scarecrows
Scarecrows masquerade as people but are old clothes and straw. Also how strange to have your name defined by what you scare - there’s nothing crow-ish about a scarecrow. Effectiveness lessens with familiarity.
NOTE
Just in writing this I’ve learned of local scarecrow festivals, I now am curious to attend. This doesn’t seem entirely pointless.
Masquerade
Leonor Fifi
Groucho Masks and Emoji
Growing up the archetypical disguise was the Groucho Marx mask, otherwise known as Groucho glasses (apparently also known as beaglepuss for “snopper-face”). Anecdotally I was wondering if these have fallen out of favor after seeing them being used in an older film and realizing that I had not seen them in ages (not to mention the growing unawareness of Groucho Marx.)
Though, “The glasses are often used as a shorthand for slapstick and are depicted in the Disguised Face (🥸)“. In reading a proposal for this new Emoji:
The Disguised Face illustrates more than just comedy. The rise of social networks has made today’s generation to most scrutinized of all time. While technology has created the opportunity for better connection, it has also introduced a modern stressor - the pressure to put one’s best face forward online. Aside from generally communicating the idea of a physical disguise, the proposed emoji represents self-awareness of the curated identity. While it acknowledges the online personas that have emerged from today’s social pressures, the Disguised Face emoji, lightens up online conversations and serves as a reminder to not take things so seriously.
The emoji proposal also includes expected usage:
- emphasis of on-the-nose joke (dad joke)
- Engagement of clandestine behavior in embarrassing location
Attempts to otherwise compose the emoji are said to not work
👃+ 🕶️+ 🧢