Vanish: Presence of Absence, 2026
Vanish (Presence of Absence) is a cyber-forensic experiment using a consumer beautification AI against itself. The work employs FaceTune’s “Vanish” feature designed to remove unwanted objects from images on the artist’s own body in order to interrogate what the system recognizes as background, noise, or error.
Operating as an intimate diagnostic, the project maps how consumer AI governs the image of the body. It unfolds as a choreography of touch and replacement: the artist manually paints over her face, genitals, and legs, designating these regions as removable. She declares herself absent, and the algorithm fills the vacancy with probability.
By weaponizing a tool built for beautification, Vanish exposes how consumer AI systems do not simply edit images, they actively rewrite bodies. It situates cosmetic algorithms within broader regimes of optimization and algorithmic flattening, asking: when artificial systems touch the most intimate markers of identity, what version of the human do they restore?
Intended for screen-based presentation; large-scale prints available upon request.