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.