Renowned visual artist and author Douglas Coupland has generously created a new, limited edition print, Space Face (Ruth), 2022, in an edition of 40 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Splash. The subject of the portrait, Ruth, is a dance student at Arts Umbrella. The funds raised from this generous gift will significantly increase our capacity to serve children and youth through arts education.

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About the piece, from Douglas Coupland:

The image I’ve created here for Splash stems from a body of work I began around 2014 which sought to determine the parameters of how much of a face could be left visible before that face became no longer recognizable by AI recognition systems. Looking back at many of those pieces, I’m amazed by how much I underestimated the speed and power of facial recognition’s approach. These days a good system can pretty much identify you by a square inch of cheekbone or by chin/earlobe/hairline proportions. I’d like to thank Ruth for ‘posing’ for this portrait as it were, and I’m curious if, in one hundred years the world can determine her identity through, say just a few pixels of this image. I wouldn’t be surprised.