New Traveling Exhibition: Promising Future, Complex Past

Posted in: Blog

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Promising Future, Complex Past: Artificial Intelligence and the Legacy of Physiognomy presents the history of physiognomy—the practice of assessing one’s mental character based on physical attributes—and explores its influence on contemporary artificial intelligence and computer science technologies that gather and interpret bodily data. Now debunked as pseudoscience, physiognomy enjoyed periods of legitimacy and popularity over a history spanning millennia, influencing the fields of medicine, biology, philosophy, anthropology, psychiatry, and criminology. After serving as tool for scientific racism and eugenics, physiognomy was roundly discredited in the 20th century.

Promising Future, Complex Past is a display of six roll-up graphic banners that travel in one container, measuring 48”(h) x 19”(w) x 19” (d) and weighing 70 lbs.

There will be a special call for organizations to request this exhibition as well as specific dates coming soon. In the meantime, you are welcome to reach out to nlmtravelingexhibits@nih.gov with any general questions you may have.