The Masking Machine (Feathered) © M Eifler

In late 2017, which feels like a digital lifetime ago, I spoke with author Alicia Eler about her debut book The Selfie Generation. Our conversation culminated with a question about the selfie as an aesthetic and communicative form that still knows no boundaries. Eler’s cogent observation came to mind when looking at the work of M Eifler, aka BlinkPopShift.

Eifler, a Bay Area multidisciplinary artist and XR (extended reality) designer pushes the boundaries of selfies through applied technology. Using a landmark detection algorithm, the artist repeatedly subjects these humble self-portraits to intense editing and manipulation until the algorithm can no longer detect their face.

The series Masking Machine (2018), recently featured in Recoding CripTech at SOMArts in San Francisco, activates questions about identity, self-representation, and mechanical intervention and authorship that date to photography’s early years. I spoke with Eifler about the motivation and method behind this unique series.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with M Eifler

© Christian Hendricks — © Christian Hendricks

In 2009, while still in college, Romke Hoogwaerts started Mossless, a thoughtfully produced, no-frills blog where he interviewed a new photographer every two days. By 2012, he was putting out books, and in 2013, while concurrently working as a New York City bicycle tour guide for the summer, began editing Mossless 3: The United States with Miriam Grace Leigh, a comprehensive photographic survey which landed itself on TIME, and unsurprisingly, Humble's best-of-2014 photobook lists. Hoogwaerts latest endeavor, Public, Private, Portrait, a collaboration with Charlotte Cotton and the International Center of Photography, is a portraiture focused parallel to ICP's upcoming launch exhibition of a similar name ("Public, Private, Secret"), with a glimpse into how the genre might address some of the blurry lines between these very issues. Working with editor Jonah Rosenberg and designer Elana Schlenker, it promises to be an immaculate publication, well worth funding through their current Kickckstarter campaign. We spoke with Hoogwaerts to get a better picture.

M. Eifler Makes Selfies for the Eyes, Ears and Fingertips

Public/Private/Portrait Might Be The Best Not-Yet-Published Photobook of 2016