Da Prato has been fascinated by portraiture for a long time, and has studied the work of Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Cindy Sherman, Dorothea Lange, Frida Kahlo, and Andy Warhol; Renaissance portraiture; Carravaggio's painting (for his use of light); French pop music videos from the mid-1960s; and early MTV music videos which, in the early years, she says, were about watching someone sing. Da Prato says she would be happy if she could sit and stare at faces all day because "in each [facial expression] you can see how we navigate the world" (2012b). Da Prato creates portraits by having a conversation with a subject while filming them: for some portraits she has asked people to "stare into the lens of the camera and think about the future -- about the next second or about tonight or about the future of humanity." She then substitutes a musical track for the conversational track, while editing the film to focus on particular facial expressions and reactions. She describes this as "choreographing the face -- it's like a little dance" of naturally occurring facial expressions (2012b).

Portrait: Arrington by Elisa Da Prato on Vimeo. (Courtesy Elisa Da Prato)

Portrait: #5: Silvia with Schubert by Elisa Da Prato on Vimeo. (Courtesy Elisa Da Prato)

Da Prato's portraits are, like Lloyd's sonifications and Josipovic's neuroscience experiments, an exploration of consciousness: "in what other way are we supposed to sink into consciousness except for looking at the face" she asks rhetorically. She deconstructs faces in the same way linguists deconstruct language in order to see how they function. Portraiture, she says, "becomes another way of relating to the world" (2012b).

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