Measure the face, read it and decipher it. The recent and controversial facial recognition systems are the latest expression of a long-cherished longing. At different times the search has had different objectives. Since the appearance of photography, temptation has been clothed in affectivity, in a scientific halo.

The graphic and artistic trail left by this search, often full of prejudices, is extraordinary. This legacy continues to inspire representations of the human face and body, as map, landscape, conflict, narrative and surface. This is a proposal to return to the face from contemporary photography and audiovisual , fundamental for the current possibilities for self-representation, but also for the technologies that have made the face itself a tool of control and recognition. Technology, surgical or digital, allows today to explore the mutability of a border, the face, which has been permanent until now.

If the past of the face as a visual motif is monumental, from Lombroso or Charcot to the cinematic foreground, the present is no less so. Devices (mobiles, webcams), programs (Deep Fake, AI) and practices continue to stress the expressive possibilities of the face and deploy new ways of understanding it.

The Panoràmic festival is directed by Joan Fontcuberta, Laia Casanova and Albert Gusi, and has an advisory team made up of Andrés Hispano, Mercè Alsina and Fèlix Pérez-Hita.