The series Body Editor was inspired by the digital failures and bugs in popular beauty apps, where unnatural bodies get distorted. While the Internet can seem like a place disconnected from the physical world, much of the activity that occurs there profoundly affects how we feel outside of it. In the age of social media, technology provides women with tools that allow them to quickly create dream digital images of themselves. Using various beauty applications, they can smooth, contour their faces, whiten their teeth, add a few centimetres of height, enlarge their eyes, choose different mouths, and use many other options.
Digitally edited images can serve as aspirational fantasies, and occasionally they even can have a positive impact – when they are just effects of joyful entertainment. But can the game in which your body is a battleground be truly enjoyable? The phrase from Barbara Kruger’s iconic work has just as much resonance today as it did more than a quarter of a century ago.
While preparing the project, I used photography as a starting point, alongside digital tools to create an expressive project that is both a critique and a celebration of the ongoing progress in contemporary technology and culture. I used many methods of creating images: preparing three-dimensional collages constructed from free stock images and my portraits, photographing the scenes, printing in large sizes, physically manipulating prints, and digitally editing selected photos. In the final step, I tried to leave visible traces of digital processing, partly revealing my working methods to provoke discussion about contemporary photography.
The series Body Editor was inspired by the digital failures and bugs in popular beauty apps, where unnatural bodies get distorted. While the Internet can seem like a place disconnected from the physical world, much of the activity that occurs there profoundly affects how we feel outside of it. In the age of social media, technology provides women with tools that allow them to quickly create dream digital images of themselves. Using various beauty applications, they can smooth, contour their faces, whiten their teeth, add a few centimetres of height, enlarge their eyes, choose different mouths, and use many other options.
Digitally edited images can serve as aspirational fantasies, and occasionally they even can have a positive impact – when they are just effects of joyful entertainment. But can the game in which your body is a battleground be truly enjoyable? The phrase from Barbara Kruger’s iconic work has just as much resonance today as it did more than a quarter of a century ago.
While preparing the project, I used photography as a starting point, alongside digital tools to create an expressive project that is both a critique and a celebration of the ongoing progress in contemporary technology and culture. I used many methods of creating images: preparing three-dimensional collages constructed from free stock images and my portraits, photographing the scenes, printing in large sizes, physically manipulating prints, and digitally editing selected photos. In the final step, I tried to leave visible traces of digital processing, partly revealing my working methods to provoke discussion about contemporary photography.
The series Body Editor was inspired by the digital failures and bugs in popular beauty apps, where unnatural bodies get distorted. While the Internet can seem like a place disconnected from the physical world, much of the activity that occurs there profoundly affects how we feel outside of it. In the age of social media, technology provides women with tools that allow them to quickly create dream digital images of themselves. Using various beauty applications, they can smooth, contour their faces, whiten their teeth, add a few centimetres of height, enlarge their eyes, choose different mouths, and use many other options.
Digitally edited images can serve as aspirational fantasies, and occasionally they even can have a positive impact – when they are just effects of joyful entertainment. But can the game in which your body is a battleground be truly enjoyable? The phrase from Barbara Kruger’s iconic work has just as much resonance today as it did more than a quarter of a century ago.
While preparing the project, I used photography as a starting point, alongside digital tools to create an expressive project that is both a critique and a celebration of the ongoing progress in contemporary technology and culture. I used many methods of creating images: preparing three-dimensional collages constructed from free stock images and my portraits, photographing the scenes, printing in large sizes, physically manipulating prints, and digitally editing selected photos. In the final step, I tried to leave visible traces of digital processing, partly revealing my working methods to provoke discussion about contemporary photography.