05. Freddie Mercury

This recalls an era when art centred on royalty and religion. Today’s celebrities have become a new kind of royalty, embodying widely shared ideals: a single face can stand for beauty, intelligence or courage. These faces become highly idealised symbols. As artificial intelligence develops and reality becomes increasingly digital, these constructed identities may be elevated to an almost divine status, their famous faces untouched by age, fatigue, illness or death. New possibilities are emerging in this symbolic world that we create together around celebrity faces.