Italian artist Dito Von Tease (‘il dito’ means ‘the finger’) has created an amazing collection of thumb portraits in his ‘Ditology’ project.
The ‘Ditology’ project aims to raise awareness for our on-line identities and how we use disguises – particularly when we leave a ‘digital fingerprint’ on-line.
It all started three years ago, when Von Tease, 33, was looking for an original avatar to use as his profile picture on Facebook.
Von Tease said he chose a finger as a disguise because he was not keen to reveal his identity.
He said: ‘In Italian someone could say I wanted to “hide myself behind my finger [trans: nascondermi dietro un dito]” – it’s a metaphor to indicate a not-very-effective hiding place.
‘I used this metaphor to say we all try to hide ourselves behind an image of us we create. That’s my finger, the changing masks everybody wears in playing life… especially famous people.’
The characters are chosen from daily news and important happenings, historical events, arts, music, television and politics.
Von Tease changes the skin colour and adds hairstyles, distinctive features and even make up. The Ditology project also taps into the importance of the index finger in today’s digital world – where many of us use our index finger to operate touch screens.
