Panégoptique

Panégoptique is an interactive installation that dynamically fuses the faces of two participants to create imaginary hybrid beings at the intersection of familiarity and otherness. By blending texture, color, and topology, it produces unsettling portraits that spark discussion about how technology, society, as well as our own vanity and fears, mediate our self-image.

The installation itself is a sculptural assemblage of twelve “obsolete” iPhones. The choice to use devices considered culturally outdated, yet still perfectly functional, is deliberate. It challenges our relationship to temporality and the environmental impact of technology. By referencing the ubiquity and cultural importance of the iPhone, the installation also questions our personal connections to social status and obsolescence, while confronting issues of bio surveillance.

Using facial detection technology, the cell phones identify and photograph the faces of visitors. These images are then sent to the “brain” of the system, which transforms them into 3D models and merges them. The resulting portrait’s surface is composed of wave-like forms drawn from both pixel matrices, and its to pology shifts between the two captured faces. The colors and textures of one face can therefore be applied to the shape of another. The algorithm exploits this liminal zone where faces are at once recognizable and unfamiliar.

Underscoring the pervasive presence of artificial intelligence in our technologically-mediated interactions, the installation incorporates its own AI-generated facial topologies specifically crafted for Panégoptique. Visitors’ faces are not only merged with those of others but are also algorithmically entangled with synthetic visages born out of the statistical fictions conjured by large language models. In this process, personal identity is refracted through a hybrid mesh of collective humanity and machine imagination, dissolving the boundaries between the real and the generated.

The resulting portraits depict beings who appear at once strangely familiar and unsettlingly other, evoking a paradoxical sense of recognition in estrangement, like memories of someone never met. Here, AI does not just process or represent the human face; it participates in its ongoing mutation folding algorithmic logic into the texture of subjectivity and transforming the way we perceive, remember, and imagine ourselves.

About the Artist:

Transforming cultural discard into playful, poetic experiences, Jean-Philippe Côté (a.k.a. djip.co) reimagines obsolete technologies as vibrant, interactive art installations. Drawing upon cast-off devices — from ATM screens, pen plotters and intercom systems to archaic iPhones or security cameras — he leverages custom artisanal software to craft new narratives for the digital and technological refuse societies leave behind. By descripting technical artifacts, his work imagines alternate futures for e-waste and invites the viewer to reconsider its relation to obsolete materialities. Despite this serious undertone, his installations can be interacted with in a playful and poetic way and offer a layered experience, both on the interactive and interpretative levels.

A recurring theme in his work is the mirroring of the visitor’s body and senses. By exhibiting distorted, hybrid, blended, fabulatory and liminal representations of the self, his artworks are underlining the dislocation between who we are and the ways in which we present ourselves in a world heavily mediated by manifold technologies.

While Côté is undeniably a hardware tinkerer, it is through software that he brings life into his art. His custom software creations are often released publicly for the benefit of all. This has made him a respected contributor of the open-source community, especially in the fields of creative coding, networked music and physical computing.

Selected by prestigious events such as Ars Electronica, ISEA, Sónar, FILE, Arte Laguna or ADAF, and shown in renowned venues including Venice’s Arsenale, Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, Montreal’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwangju’s Asia Culture Center, or Rio’s Museu do Amanhã, his art resonates across continents.

Côté teaches interactive media at Collège Édouard-Montpetit, holds a master’s degree in communications(experimental media) and is a PhD candidate in the Arts Studies and Practices program of Université du Québec à Montréal.

In blending technical appropriation, software remediation, and algorithmic serendipity, he challenges viewers to imagine alternate futures for the technologies we leave behind.