2D MutantZombies project was a post-production phase of the new media workshop that was realized in July 2006 at the summer art school in Pirot, organized by University of the Arts in Belgrade. The workshop applied the algorithmic methodology of small differences to explore the individual artistic differences that are expressed through creative effort within a precisely defined and limited formal system.

At the outset, the participating artists agreed upon their selection of four models on location. Each artist made their own photographic portraits of the models under the same conditions (digital camera, tripod, background, lightning, etc). Each artist then individually combined the two pairs out of four portraits, morphed the selected pairs, and used the intermediary frames of these two morphs to create a final morph whose intermediary frame was printed (procedural diagram).

Although digital morphing technique, which is basically defined by calculations of pixel positions and colour values, may imply that the artists were primarily ‘impersonal’ manipulators, they created distinctive hybrid portraits with specific qualities of personality and character as convincingly identifiable as any non-synthetic human imagery. The systemic mapping of abstract image elements thus indicates the complex social processes and cultural policies in generation, design, interpretation and distribution of identities.

The distanced, ‘non-expressive’ conceptual approach, together with the assertion of procedural and technical aspects, endows an ambivalent feeling of indifference to the works. Their sense of virtual alienation opens the space for an intimate reconsideration of the conventional and ideologically established notions of some basic terms of human relations such as sympathy, friendliness and affection.