Smith, K (2018) Portraits, Likenesses, Composites? Facial Difference in Forensic Art. In: Skinner, P and Cock, E, (eds.) Approaches to Facial Difference: Past and Present. Bloomsbury, London, UK. ISBN 9781350028296

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Abstract

The police composite sketch is arguably the most fundamental example of forensic art, and one which enjoys considerable cultural prominence. Intended to produce a positive identification of a specific individual, composites are a form of visual intelligence rather than hard evidence. Based on verbal descriptions drawn from memory deriving from highly contingent and possibly traumatic events, composites are by definition unique and precarious forensic objects, representing an epistemological paradox in their definition as simultaneous ‘artistic impression’ and ‘pictorial statement’. And despite decades of operational use, only in recent years has the field of cognitive psychology begun to fully understand and address the conditions that affect recognition rates both positively and negatively. How might composites contribute to our understanding of representational concepts such as ‘likeness’ and ‘accuracy’? And what role does visual medium – drawn, photographic or computerized depiction – play in the legibility of these images? Situated within the broader context of forensic art practices, this paper proceeds from an understanding that the face is simultaneously crafted as an analogy of the self and a forensic technology. In other words, the face is a space where concepts of identification and identity, sameness and difference (often uncomfortably) converge. With reference to selected examples from laboratory research, field application and artistic practice, I consider how composites, through their particular techniques and form, contribute to subject-making, and how they embody the fugitive, in literal and figurative terms.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Forensic Art; Facial Composites; Likeness; Facial memory; Forensic Aesthetics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration
Divisions:	Art & Design
Publisher:	Bloomsbury
Date Deposited:	14 Feb 2019 10:50
Last Modified:	03 Sep 2021 23:41
Editors:	Skinner, P and Cock, E
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/10133

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