Introduction

In the introduction, we examine the long and shifting relationship between masks and faces—two figures often cast as opposites, yet historically and conceptually bound together. While the mask is usually associated with concealment, rigidity, or performance, and the face with openness, expression, or authenticity, our concern is to show how each has been defined through the other. From the shared Greek term prosopon, which signifies both mask and face, to contemporary digital filters, biometric systems, and prosthetic technologies, we trace how the mask and the face operate less as stable entities than as relational surfaces on which recognition, identity, and humanity are projected and contested. The introduction outlines how different traditions represented in the volume—philosophical, anthropological, political, and artistic—have understood this relation: from the face as the site of ethical demand (Levinas) or spirit (Simmel), to the mask as a political and aesthetic device (Arendt, Goffman). We also sketch here the case studies developed across the volume, which range from racialized facial classifications to theatrical and cinematic uses of the mask and contemporary digital avatars. By situating masks and faces together, the introduction frames them as co-constitutive, illuminating how they shape one another across history, media, and theory.