Know Your Collector (2026)

KYC usually asks you to prove who you are to an institution.

This reverses the direction.

The collector does not hand over a face. They make one.

Google's GNM head model generates, lights, and turns a face. The rendered mesh is reduced to horizontal bands of ink.

What survives is enough for the eye to build a person.

No selfie enters the system. The face belongs to no collector until a collector chooses it, changes its pose and treatment, and saves the result.

A portrait by association, not resemblance.

The identity seed controls the head. Pose, expression, light, and ink are settings.

Change the settings and the same synthetic person stays recognizable.

Anyone can reproduce the image. The seed and full configuration ship with every saved work.

The collector's decision to stop on that image and claim it happens once.

How it worked

Patron. Hold the edition that opens the system.

Generate. Move through identities, poses, light, and ink.

Select. Save one configuration.

Verify. Post a unique code from an established X account.

The post ties one public person to one chosen image. It verifies the choice, not the face.

No supply was announced in advance. Each collector who finished before the deadline added one work.

565 collectors finished.

Know your collector.