the fall of videophony (pp. 148–150)

The mask-culture's arc bends all the way back to pure hiding. Masks better-looking than their wearers ("Optimistically Misrepresentational Masking") give way to full-body cutouts and finally to the Tableau — a doctored still of an attractive stranger propped over the camera — behind which "callers… were once again stresslessly invisible… free—since once again unseen—to doodle, blemish-scan, manicure, crease-check." The disguise-technology completes a closed circle back to the blind old voice-only phone: the whole elaborate apparatus exists so people can hide while appearing to reveal, "videophony" collapsing into its own pun. And the auteur is in the machinery — JOI's patent list (020) includes "videophonic Tableaux": the filmmaker whose late work veils its figures held the patent on the nation's mass disguise-apparatus. Hiding-in-plain-sight, sold by the console.