Alloentity (n.) The relational dimension of identity; the ongoing negotiation of the self as a social interface, consciously and unconsciously shaped by influence, awareness, and motive.

I created the word "alloentity" from two words: "allostatic" and "identity." The root of identity, iden-, means to stay the same...but who ever stays the same across a lifetime?

Physiologists Peter Sterling and Joseph Eyer coined "allostasis" challenging the assumption that the body seeks a fixed equilibrium, arguing instead that it adjusts its parameters proactively in response to predicted demands. Identity, similarly, is made stable by never stopping.

These are some of the earliest portraits created with a fine-tuned generative model (October 2022), when the glitches and limitations were still visually pronounced. The machine created these images through a statistical average of pixels, cultural behavior translated into numerical coordinates. Through its technical limitations and politically complex dataset, I met something unexpected.

This particular technology has deeply unsettled me since I first learned of it. But on the other side of its worst potential, I found a layer of reality I had not considered. The engagement between my likeness, the world's data, and the machine became a psychological unraveling of the invisible logics that shape how we move through the world. A prismatic unpacking of The Gaze(s).

Identity is constructed through languages one did not write, gazes one did not invite, histories one did not choose. And yet there is still a negotiating subject who can push back, adjust their hair, or the words within their prompts. None of us author ourselves alone. Our existence is always of shared authorship. These portraits are accompanied by a century of thinkers who understood this negotiation well before the machine existed. I call this negotiation, alloentity.