uture Face is a new exhibition opening at the London Science Museum “exploring how the face has been depicted and altered throughout history. It opens with the declaration: 'The face is our interface with the world. Through it we navigate personal, social and cultural spaces.' [...] 
When Nicolas Cage and John Travolta swapped faces in Hollywood action film Face-Off, most viewers thought they were watching a far-fetched fantasy. But US scientists have already carried out face transplants on dead bodies donated for medical research. They are now awaiting approval to do the same on living people with disfigurements. [...]
French performance artist Orlan has probably gone as far as anyone. She has publicly undergone plastic surgery several times as part of her act, to try and look like a computer-generated ideal made up of several classical images of beauty, including Mona Lisa. [...] 'We are subtlely being conditioned by the digital face and heading towards a face which no human being could have been born with. This face is smooth and narrow, with a small jaw, big lips and manga Japanese eyes for the females. This face is smooth and narrow, with a small jaw, big lips and manga Japanese eyes for the females.'” [BBC]
“Future Face explores the physical make-up of the face and how it has been depicted and analysed, altered and reconstructed. It looks at the creation of virtual faces. It examines the links between the face and individual and collective identity. And it explores the role of the face to express meaning and aid social communication.” [Exhibition Themes]
I'm definitely trying to get the book.
And here's a previous Ratchet-job on “state-of-the-flesh” character simulation and Dawn.
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