Photographer Scott Chasserot Shows How Brain Scans Can Reveal Our Ideal Self-Image

In a new project called Original Ideal, photographerScott Chasserot combines brainwave scanners, image editing, and human psychology. Through a series of carefully-derived photo manipulation and brain scanning processes, Chasserot hopes to capture a glimpse of his subjects’ ideal self-images.

More: Twitter h/t:: vice

The first step in his process involves capturing images of his subjects in as minimal, basic, and effortless states as possible.

Following the application of a suite of digital modifications to the captured image—tweaks on hair, skin coloring, and facial structure—to conform to or defy modern ideals of airbrushed beauty, his models are hooked up to an Emotiv EEG brain scanner, and shown 50 of Chasserot’s modified images.

Those brain scans are then analyzed for, in Chasserot’s words, “a measure of mental focus that can be taken to also denote a positive emotional reaction”; qualities Chasserot calls ‘engagement.’