Kertu Rannula

snapchat dystopia

When Photoshop or 3D-technologies are still mainly for the tech-savvy, beauty filters that circulate on all social media platforms, allow self-modification with only a single touch. From pure entertainment to a powerful tool, filters have made manipulating with our reality easier than ever before.

Filters, that distort faces and bodies, are widely spread in typical social media users but also within famous influencers. In China, even posting an unedited photo of a friend, is considered a violation of the social norm; and going to a plastic surgeon with a beauty filter edited selfie has become so frequent that this state of mind has led to a new termin called “Snapchat dysmorphia”.

From comparing ourselves to unrealistic standards, we now must grapple with impossible versions of oneself.

Exploring the elitist hierarchies in which our bodies operate on a daily basis, the work addresses the affect that social media filters have on our daily lives and behaviour. The relation between the filter and the user is under observation – is a beauty filter a sticky parasite who is made to be a part of the system, which splits our self-image and profits from our insecurities, or is the filter soon becoming a part of our daily beauty routine?

Visitors are invited into an alternative reality, where the roles of the human and the filter have been reversed. The centre that connects the work together is the artist’s own face, which has become a moldable material.