Exploring the Degree of Abstraction
I have created the following images of a face in twelve different degrees of abstraction. Initially, the facial shapes are very detailed and clearly set within a context, making it immediately recognisable that the depicted person is a young woman. Step by step, I reduced the colours, simplified the shapes, and removed more and more elements. In the end, only two black dots remain where the eyes used to be.
Starting with the last image featuring two dots, I showed the series to a test group of three different people. I asked them if they could recognize what was shown in the image. Two out of the three people recognized a face in the eleventh image with three dots; the third person recognized a face in the tenth image, when the shape of the mouth was already more refined.
Additionally, I asked the test group at which point they were able to recognize the gender of the face and estimate its rough age. One test person said this was possible at the ninth image, the second person at the seventh, and the third at the fifth image, when the context of longer hair surrounding the face was present.
