Self-Portrait (desynchronized) (13 May 2026) is the earliest entry in the catalogue of KillersForLunch and the record of an equipment failure that the artist chose to keep. It contains no You. It contains the artist, in rooster form, outside a saloon at dusk, wearing a photograph where a head would ordinarily go.
What happened
The artist took up an in-world camera intending a straightforward self-portrait of the face. At the moment of capture, a network desynchronization separated the camera's idea of where the artist was from where the artist actually was, and the photograph came out showing the artist's shirt.
The artist then mounted the print in front of the head, on the reasonable expectation that a self-portrait taken at face height depicts a face. It does not. It depicts the shirt. The resulting figure has a torso where its head should be, and stands with complete assurance.
Description
The documentation photograph is itself rotated sideways, which scholars attribute to the general disorder of the session. It shows the rooster form at close range: comb, wattle, plaid kilt, and the mounted print occupying the head position, displaying fabric.
Interpretation
Readers have proposed that the work anticipates the entire later corpus, in which the subject (You) takes whatever form circumstance supplies and remains untroubled. Here, months before the first documented You, the artist's own head is replaced by the wrong image and nothing about the posture concedes it. The catalogue neither endorses nor rejects this reading; the artist has not commented, possibly because the relevant face was unavailable for comment.
Provenance
Photographed 13 May 2026 at 23:10 local time. The desynchronized print has not been re-taken. As far as the record shows, the artist still expects it to be the head.