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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson

TW-55 Spy  
  Conscious control of facial characteristics.  

The Baron smiled. "His fingerprints and retina pattern, he can alter at will. A little neural surgery has made all the muscles of his face voluntary, which means he can alter his face structure drastically. Chemical dyes and hormone banks beneath the scalp enable him to color his hair in seconds, or, if necessary, shed it completely and grow a new batch in half an hour. He's a past master in the psychology and physiology of coercion.
Technovelgy from Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany.
Published by Ace Books in 1966
Additional resources -

Compare to the face dancers from Frank Herbert's 1969 novel Dune Messiah.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Babel-17
  More Ideas and Technology by Samuel R. Delany
  Tech news articles related to Babel-17
  Tech news articles related to works by Samuel R. Delany

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