Face-o-mat Tobias Gutmann & Sai Bot

At the heart of Tobias Gutmann’s artistic practice lies the creation and investigation of encounters – between people, cultures, and environments, but also between what we perceive on the outside and what we feel on the inside. With his Face-o-mat performance, Tobias Gutmann portrays people by expressing their characteristics and personal traits through abstract drawings. Rather than providing a photorealistic depiction, he aims to capture the sound of a person. Tobias Gutmann has traveled the world with his performance, having drawn more than 5000 portraits along his way.

Since 2019, in a poetic gesture, Artist Tobias Gutmann has taught an AI to draw portraits, that transmit the Face-o-mat DNA and process ten years of his experience. Sai Bot is Tobias Gutmann’s digital artist twin. Can an artificial intelligence satisfy our longing to be seen? Does an AI even see us as humans? Will we ever understand the incomprehensible decisions of Sai Bot and the encrypted language it is speaking to us? Sai Bot, a humanized machine, is doing what Tobias has done, but different, and this difference creates the tension, probing the questions of human replaceability vs human uniqueness.

The Face-o-mat project aims to open up questions about the essence of what it means to see and be seen as humans. 

Tobias Gutmann has already been invited to renowned exhibition venues such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Platform L Contemporary Art Center in Seoul, the Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich and most recently the Ithra Museum in Saudi Arabia. Sai Bot has portrayed people in exhibitions, such as at the Underdogs Gallery, Lisbon and the Mobiliar Art Collection in Berne.

Face-o-mat Sai Bot

The Artificial Intelligence that powers Face-o-mat Sai Bot has been developed by Dazlus.

Face-o-mat Sai Bot

The Artificial Intelligence that powers Face-o-mat Sai Bot has been developed by Dazlus.