 A
recent
survey suggested that humans define physical beauty as symmetry, and that the more
perfectly symmetrical both their face and body are, the more
'beautiful' that person will be said to be. I've always been a skeptic
on such things, and since this weekend sees the publication of the
Hedonism edition of Virtual
Occoquan, which I had the privilege to
co-edit, I thought it was time to put it to the test.
The picture above is of a model, Alex, as she appeared in a recent
magazine. Alex has, to me, a beautiful face: expressive, flawless
(thanks perhaps to the makeup), with strong, even features. If you
believe the beauty pundits, if her face were completely symmetrical she
should be even more
beautiful. So I used a bit of digital wizardry and replicated both the
left and right sides of her face, to make a perfectly symmetrical Alex.
The results are shown below.
 
See what I mean? I think the asymmetry
is what makes her face beautiful. Even setting aside the fact that
perfectly symmetrical hair looks silly, both symmetrical Alex's look a
bit bland. What really
surprises me is how different
the symmetrical Alex's look from each other. The right-side one looks
several years younger.
There has been some discussion on Salon blogs lately about the
importance and sanctity of our names as icons, avatars, of who we are.
I would say that our faces are even more important as representations
of us. If I had put up Alex's face and name on my blog and masqueraded
(a great word!) as Alex, it would be interesting to see how my audience
would have differed, and how people's impressions of me and my work
would have differed. I'd hazard a guess that my business writing would
be taken less seriously and perhaps my creative writing more seriously.
I'd certainly get more fan mail.
We're about twenty years away from facial surgery that will allow us to
look any way we want to. And that decision may have a huge impact on
our success, our relationships, our direction in life. As if career,
life partner, and work-life balance weren't enough decisions to make!
The imaginary people I created above are staring at me, haunting me,
begging me for better hairstyles. Alas, that's beyond my artistic or
technical skill. Should I put them back in the bottle, or give them
names, lives of their own, make them characters in my stories? As for
Alex, if that's her real name, if that's her real face, I apologize for
making your avatar the victim of my alchemy.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
