The New Way To Look Fabulous (by adobé)

In Thursday’s class the phrase ‘artificial beauty’ was discussed. An example was given where a visual artist made ‘the best face’ with a computer. This was as a completely computer-generated face. It showed that beauty as we know it, is no longer restricted to the ‘real world’. It showed that computer generated faces can be beautiful. 

Now this was of course an artist who came up with the idea and made the face with software. Also, this was in 1993. 

In 2012, this technology and these methods are no longer only used by artists or professional editors. Take a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vVUIYOmJM 

The video hilariously underlines what a big part of society already knows: Celebrities are unrealistic good looking. So what started 19 years ago as a form of art and what amazed the world is now something very common and used as often as real make up. 

Because, let’s face it: You are not perfect. None of us are. Not even the people on the covers of magazines. But technology such as Photoshop offers us perfection. Celebrities are no longer real. They are made. Not just made by managers, money or ‘society’, no. By technology. They become, very literally, a product. The over use of photoshop doesn’t amuse a lot of people. The masses expect a ‘real’ celebrity, not some picture, edited for 5 hours by a man in an office. This frustration becomes clear in the final lines of the video: Maybe she’s born with it? No, I’m pretty sure it’s photoshop. We expect reality. Not virtuality. 

-Sjoerd

So here’s my question: If you use photoshop to ‘brush up’ a picture of yourself: what happens to you? Are you the photoshopped person in the picture you just saved as: thisistherealme.JPG; or are you the real person, not perfect, sitting in front of the computer? Are you changing yourself?