As I have set myself a goal to start thinking about new technologies and the future of media, I came across this interview with Isamaya Ffrench who is a futuristic make up artist. I am still continuing to develop my theme of ‘beauty ideals’ but want to approach it with a more speculative, futuristic approach and examine audience and ways of communicating. Below are some notes which stood out to me, particularly the use of Machine Learning to generate beauty looks and using prosthetics to subvert traditional ideas of beauty. This has inspired me to look at the intersection of beauty and science.
Stretching the brief between prettifying tricks and gender politics. Her work is unmistakable, gorgeous and sometimes terrifying. She combines classic beauty looks with radical fantasy.
“I feel so honoured to be alive in the time of the Kardashians. What an amazing spectacle and cultural phenomenon, don’t you think? I mean, if you can separate that from the growth of such an illness of narcissistic self-indulgence, that pathology. They’ve dominated ideas of what wealth looks like, they’ve presented themselves as status symbols. They’ve dictated what beauty is. So I think, of course, people want to emulate it.”
For the cover of Dazed Beauty she used an AI system that analysed 17,000 images from Instagram to learn what society considers beautiful.
“What I think will happen next as well is that physical health will become even more equated with beauty. From somehow displaying say, your maximum lung capacity or your energy levels or how long your telomeres, your strands of DNA are. Beauty will be about how healthy a person is down to a cellular level, because, just like in Renaissance times, that’s probably an indication that they’re a fertile person.”