FACE, COSMOS, ANTHROPOCENE. TOWARDS A NEW SENSIBILITY

Our understanding of the face is deeply entrenched in ocular-centrism and anthropocentric narcissism, limiting the recognition of faceness to humans alone. This restricted perspective undermines our ethical engagement with the non-human world and sustains an illusion of stability and control, blinding us to our existential fragility and diminishing our ability to address the profound challenges of the Anthropocene. Drawing on speculative realism, this essay seeks to transcend these limitations by reimagining the concept of the face as a dynamic, relational phenomenon. By broadening our discernment of faceness beyond the human, we aim to foster a more attuned and ethically responsive orientation toward the interconnected realities of our era.