Automatic Face Fixer
I absolutely love those galleries where graphic artists show their mad photoshop skillz by displaying galleries of befores & afters of “cleaned up” photos. Seeing these galleries of what it takes to really make someone “magazine beautiful” makes me feel a lot better about myself as I read Maxim.
That being said, I find this piece of software that automatically does “beauty retouching” particularly interesting. Combined with the composite beauty scale that I came across a few weeks ago, it seems that technology is being used in incredible ways to create a science of beauty. Beauty, like art, seems to be so ethereal. Knowing that algorithms and mouse clicks can create beauty from the mundane is fascinating to me. It seems that through technology we are able to slowly start to define — in tangible, concrete terms — what our eyes and our minds have been telling us for centuries.
Like a lot of scientific progress, I have to wonder, though, if it doesn’t take some of the magic out of it. Mystery makes things interesting. Knowing that someone is beautiful just because her eyes are symmetrical or her forehead is in proper proportion seems to make the beauty a lot less captivating. As the line continually tends to blur between reality and fiction, it also seems that developments like this can further fuel cynicism. Why care about beauty at all if it can be manufactured so easily?
Perhaps that’s why sites like the Suicide Girls flourish. Even though their photos are just as digitally manipulated as any other porn, the fact that the girls often aren’t conventionally beautiful somehow seems to lend authenticity to a world that is increasingly manufactured.
I personally think that airbrushing is being way over-used. It kind of takes away the subjects personality. They all look so doll-like and inhuman. Fragile almost, like they could break if they move too quickly. Though hot, damn hot.
Sol740 said this on March 18th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
The fact that beauty is equated with fragility makes me consider, however briefly, that maybe the feminists weren’t all wrong. Maybe the patriarchy wants women to be powerless, and thus sets the standard for beauty that way. It also sheds some light on the fetish for school girls and traits that make women look as young as possible (like pigtails).
brandie said this on March 19th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Well I think that “beauty” in this case, is definetly equatable with fragility. If only because by airbrushing a photo, it makes the subject seem brand new, untouched, like a new car. Now that could be equated to a possesive personality, but I say that strictly in the same way as you would treat a new car. For instance, last time you bought a new vehicle, weren’t you extra careful not to burn it with a cigarette, or drop a random piece of trash in it. To me an airbrushed photo has a porcelain quality to it, that may give that illusion as well.
Sol740 said this on March 19th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
That’s an interesting analogy. Although, when I think about it, with a new car, as you said, you’re extra careful to not spoil it and to take care of it. It seems that when they airbrush these models and make them perfect, it seems to often appeal to a man’s desire to fuck up something perfect. They make them fragile so that the man wants to destroy it.
brandie said this on March 20th, 2007 at 7:03 am
OH NOES !!! I am undone …
Sol740 said this on March 20th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Did someone say school girls?
r3dw0rm said this on March 27th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
See Rob. My site doesn’t have porn, but it does have underage girls. Twice, even, if you count the post about “free sex for everyone cuz the governor approves”!
brandie said this on March 27th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Did someone say free sex?
r3dw0rm said this on April 6th, 2007 at 4:30 am