Tsuji

Description

This project, titled “∅ → U” (EmptySet to You), reimagines the portrait in the age of AI. Instead of depicting specific individuals, I begin with AI-generated “average faces” that belong to no one—faces built from data, not memory. These faces are eerily familiar yet anonymous, statistical echoes rather than real people. Onto these faceless images, I intervene with hand-painted brushstrokes and fields of color. My goal is not to finish or correct the image, but to interrupt it—to insert human hesitation, material texture, and temporal friction into AI’s seamless logic. The result is a hybrid form where meaning no longer resides in the subject but emerges through the viewer’s gaze. The project explores what it means to create a portrait when authorship, identity, and ownership are unstable. Who owns a face that belongs to no one? What does it mean to “see someone” where no one exists? In this sense, each viewer completes the image by projecting emotion, memory, or recognition into the void. “∅ → U” is not just about AI. It’s about the shifting structures of perception, and about finding new ways to feel, question, and connect through images that resist certainty.

Process

The starting point for this project was a growing sense of unease toward the flood of “faces that belong to no one.” In today’s world—where AI-generated images, social media, and advertising are saturated with facial imagery—we’re surrounded by faces that feel familiar but lack identity. They are not portraits in the traditional sense; they are structures generated from data, not memory. I saw in this phenomenon a powerful reflection of our time. Rather than resisting it, I decided to engage with it directly. By starting with these anonymous AI-generated faces and intervening with my own hand, I aimed to question what a portrait means today. When the subject is “no one,” what do we see? What do we unconsciously project into that absence? This moment of projection—of “making someone” where there is no one—is where I believe the contemporary portrait truly begins.

Tools

My process combines AI-generated imagery with hand painting. I begin by using Midjourney to generate anonymous faces—portraits that belong to no one. From these, I select an image that resonates emotionally and print it out on paper. I then transfer the image onto canvas and begin painting with acrylics. My brushwork is not meant to follow the AI's smooth and perfect structure. Instead, I intentionally introduce visual “noise” and “distortions”—blurs, smudges, and the trace of hesitation—adding a human layer of uncertainty and emotion. Through this dialogue between AI and human touch, I aim to create portraits that don’t belong to any one person, but instead awaken something within the viewer’s memory or perception. Tools used: Midjourney (AI image generation) Pigment ink printer Canvas (cotton or linen) Acrylic paints, brushes, manual transfer process