NEW LENSES: Experimental Capture and Release

I wanted to capture the body dysmorphia we cause onto ourselves with the extremely hyperbolic features of modern face filters & editors. Not only do these filters cause an unrealistic standard for how our beauty should be displayed, they also perpetuate unhealthy behaviors; one person starts using these kind of applications, it then becomes the standard that everyone starts using them in order to match the “good” looks of the posts that other people are putting onto social media. These days, we are only living our lives through these different lenses, and so many people become used to this altered version of themselves, nobody is used to viewing their natural skin or appearance. The dysmorphia does not stop at the apps that you can download on your phones, many phones have built in cameras that come with a pre-installed beauty filter that can never be removed. We are forcefully being removed from a position where we can appreciate our natural faces. There are also many apps where you can take pictures of yourself and the AI will point out what parts of your face could use plastic surgery and then give you direct links to the hospitals to where you could then go do plastic surgery. There are versions of Uber Eats where the main user interface has a section to book plastic surgery appointments right next to where you would order McDonald’s.

I used one of the most popular beauty filter apps and progressed from the original state, slowly adding all of the popular modifications. I wanted to show how the use of these applications can lead to an unreal idea of how we are supposed to look like, and how the overuse and dependence on beauty filter applications can affect our self image and subconsciously influence bigger decisions like plastic surgery. I directly added filters to reach an extremely ridiculous state to show the level we are willing to alter ourselves in order to appeal to social media and other people. The main point of this work is that these are not edits made by Photoshop, they are made simply through sliding a filter onto my image.

Here is a video of the entire process: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G_Zw_Wb2HPHfF_s7icWZcuM1i6vIelfS/view?usp=sharing