Melita Dahl | Deadpan artefacts: creative experiments with facial expression recognition in photographic portraiture

Over the past three decades, photography has evolved from its traditional role as an indexical imprint of the world into a fluid, computational space shaped by digital transformation. Within this context, the photographic portrait both as a historical art form and a site for computer vision offers a compelling framework for practice-led research exploring the shifting nature of photographic representation. This research explores the datafication of pose and expression through creative experiments engaging with Facial Expression Recognition (FER) technologies. A key focus is the neutral category in FER, which closely aligns with the deadpan expression a dominant convention in fine art and documentary portraiture since the 1920s.

The collected body of practice-led research moves from using FER tools in the photographic studio to the statistical analysis and visualisation of a portrait dataset. It culminates in a discursive video essay that critically synthesises the paradox of the portrait photograph both as cultural form and as data. Through this research, the deadpan and the neutral have emerged as critical devices that unite the socio-technical complexities of portraiture in both historical and contemporary contexts, particularly in relation to computer vision. These recurring devices offer a distinctive framework for examining the transformation of portraiture, underscoring that expression whether captured by a camera or interpreted by an algorithm is never a neutral observation.

Melita Dahl is a Canberra-based artist working across photography, video projection and multimedia installation. Her practice has long engaged the portrait as an experimental site where cultural and technological forces intersect with the history of photographic practice.

Focusing on the neutral face found to be measurable through facial expression recognition technologies she traces a correlation with the deadpan. This interplay serves as a conceptual bridge in her practice-led research, connecting the conventions of analogue portraiture with contemporary data-driven approaches. As a result, Dahl's works explore how neutrality operates across the intersecting fields of portraiture, photography and technology.

An early graduate of the ANU School of Art & Design, Dahl later undertook postgraduate study at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Her work is held in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Museum and Gallery and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, and has been exhibited widely in Australia and abroad.

This exhibition is presented as part of a Higher Degree by Research examination. Please note that the gallery will be closed to the public during examination times.