Da Rejeição Total à Atração Fatal: O Estranho Caso do Retrato Judiciário (‘Mugshot’) nos Setores da Ciência, da Filosofia e da Arte

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From Total Rejection to Fatal Attraction: The Strange Case of Mugshots in Science, Philosophy and Art.The ways science, philosophy and art have dealt for almost two hundred years with ‘mugshots’ (American designation nowadays globally used for judiciary portraits with criminal identification purposes) are often paradoxical and/or deeply emotional and extreme, ranging from total rejection or absolute oblivion to strong fascination and almost fatal attraction. This paper starts by retrospectively identifying and shortly analysing the main approaches of science to mugshots (especially anthropology, criminology and medicine) since their advent in the second half of the 19th century, simultaneously focusing on the evolution of the historical, political and social contexts of this approach until contemporary times. The referred evolution is then used to approach the second scrutinized sector, i. e. analysing (the role of) mugshots in philosophical terms and as bio-political instruments of power in the same period Finally yet importantly, the article emphasizes the way the ‘mugshots theme’ eventually fascinated major artists in the 20th and 21st centuries and how its dissemination and popularity exponentially grew through the 20th and 21st century media explosion, namely TV and social networks.