This digital archive stores the photos posted by men to their public profiles on dating websites and apps (gay and straight ones alike), where the identifying features have been deliberately altered by the profile owners using digital photo editing tools.
These men rely on more than textual descriptions and default avatars to present themselves, they show their photos - therefore, clearly identify themselves - and yet, at the same time, they take conscious measures to hide their identity, to ‘become unrecognizable’ with an act of artistic intervention into the image (not just by cropping the photo or by posing with their faces not visible). The degree of this artistic intervention clearly marks their personal border between self-representation and preserving anonymity.
To what extent people can add black geometric shapes or colourful scribbles onto their faces and still remain themselves in the photo? What amount of blur effect hides someone’s face beyond recognition while still preserving portrait’s identificational function?