Masks

"This clarity is also expressed in the typus, in whom this transformation begins to be foreshadowed, and which evokes an initial impression of a certain emptiness and uniformity.  This is the very same uniformity that makes any individual differentiation in a class of relatively unknown animals or races of men very difficult.

What is immediately conspicuous from pure physiognomy is the mask-like rigidity of the face, which is just as much acquired, as it is enhanced through external means such as beardlessness, hairstyle and close-fitting headgear.  We conclude from this maskedness – inducing a metallic impression in men, a cosmetic one in women – that an even more radical process is being revealed, such that the very forms through which gender is made visible in the face might be eroding.  In passing, we should say that the role the mask has begun to play, even in everyday life, is no accident.  It makes an appearance in all sorts of ways in places in which the special work-character breaks through, be it as gas-mask (which we are looking to issue to whole populations), as face-mask for sport and for high speeds (as worn by every motorist), as protection mask (in places with dangerous processes involving radiation, explosives or narcotics). We suspect that the mask could be given entirely different tasks to those of the present – for instance through a development in which photography becomes important as a political assault-weapon."

- The Worker