Ines Alpha, AR-Instagram Filter Oyster Moisture
Very F***ing Real. Augmented Reality Face-Filters as Art
Exhibition:
May 12 to June 11, 2022, Museum of Emptiness, St. Gallen
An exhibition in the context of the Swiss Interactive Media Design Day 2022
Artists:
Ines Alpha, Harriet Davey, Jess Herrington, Rosa Hirn, Johanna Jaskowska, Keiken, Andy Picci
How do I want to look on the Internet?
Can I be someone else?
What is real on social media?
An AR face filter is a virtual mask with which we can quickly and reversibly change our appearance. Since the social media platform Snapchat opened their software applica- tion for augmented reality to all users in 2017 and Instagram joined in two years later, artists have started to experiment with this medium. They are using it to show what else is possible besides the familiar dog ears and baby faces. If AR technology is understood as an artistic medium, then the users face is the canvas for a work of art that happens in the moment of using the filter. The fact that these images are created on Instagram or Snapchat makes them quick and easy to share, and they thus receive a great visibility.
Face filters allow us to playfully change our appearance and experiment with our self-portrayal. The artists in this exhibition show how this medium can be used to question common ideals of beauty. A large number of the filters available on social media are used to beautify one’s own face, to make the skin appear smoother and more even, the eyes larger and more radiant. It is now well known that this practice of optimizing one’s own face leads to unrealistic, unfulfillable ideals of beauty, especially among a young audience. The phenomenon is called “Snapchat Dysmorphia.” It refers to the obsession with the supposed ”flaws” in one’s own appearance and the desire to conform one’s appearance to the face-filter selfie. The artists in this exhibition deliberately design face filters that do not conform to these ideals of beauty and present more diverse ideas of what might be considered “beautiful” in the future. They show that in AR technology, there are almost no limits to one’s own imagination. With the help of the AR filters in this exhibition, new realities can be created that break down the standardized ideas of beauty, the belonging to a gender or a species – AR creates a reality that follows different rules.
Organisation:
This exhibition is the first project of ZiKD, the Center for Immersive Art and Design, dedicated to the thematic areas around digitization and immersion in art and design. The exhibition Very F***ing Real! Augmented Reality Face-Filters as Art forms the exemplary testing of the future program and is meant to strike the playful, low-threshold tone that ZIKD strives for.
Curation: Marlene Wenger, Media Installation: Martin Kovacovsky, Project Management: Franziska Eriksen, Beat Lüscher, Communication: Dominik Sigrist, KiloKilo.
Artist Talk:
May 14, 2022, 5pm: My Augmented Self - How AR is Changing Beauty Standards
Andy Picci talks with science journalist Roland Fischer about the influences of AR face filters in social media on changing beauty ideals. Moderated by Marlene Wenger.
Our partners for this projects were KiloKilo, die Gestalter, Center for Augmented Computational Design in Architecture, Engineering and Construction ETH and HF Interactive Media Design SG.
This project is sponsored Senn, Frontify, Canton St. Gallen, Ikea and Ria and Arthur Dietschweiler Stiftung