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This essay critically discusses the question ‘What is beauty?’ through our group’s evaluation of what we believe beauty is and how we have chosen to visualise this through our photographs. I will discuss :
BEAUTY WOLKENSTEIN SAKOVICH BIENICK STUDIES FINAL IMAGES DECONSTRUCTED ANOTHER MAGAZINE CONCLUSION 3
BEAUTY
With 43,172 surgical procedures being undergone in 2012 (Sedghi, 2013) , we are a society becoming more and more obsessed with our vanity. It is incredible that even now when women have more power, money and legal recognition than ever before, how we feel about ourselves physically and attractively, has pushed back our progress. Research has shown that now, successful and attractive women are secretly filled inside with a poisonous self hatred, physical obsessions and the terror of ageing. Yet with ideals of female beauty changing ‘more rapidly than that of the evolution of species’, we are capable of changing this myth (Wolf, 1991). The media needs to instigate an acceptance of diverse beauty, and by no longer allowing ourselves to become victimised by airbrushed images. We are a modern postindustrial society who need to stop morphing and moulding ourselves through plastic surgery into our artificially created, ‘perfect’, unachievable ideal of beauty.
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‘anti-ageing treatments such as eyelid surgery and face lifts saw double digit increases’
(Sedghi, 2013)
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We gained inspiration from Julian Wolkenstein whose 11 photographic series made viewers rethink their desires for a symmetric face. Over 12,000 individuals uploaded their portraits onto his photographic internet symmetry project on ‘echoism.org’. By enabling users to upload their images via webcam and iPhone app. By doign so he was able to reach a huge audience of digital natives, who were then able to create symmetrical re-creations of themselves (Summerson, 2012). Successfully his message reached thousands, and as he proved, ‘some of the symmetrical [faces] don't look attractive at all’ (Anonymous, 2011). This backed up our beliefs behind this project , that asymmetry has a beauty of it’s own and creates its own diversity by making us all unique.
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‘Part of my project has been to de-bunk the myth that symmetrical people are therefore better looking’ (Wolkenstein, 2012)
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Roman Sakovich, a London based photographer, created his (Edwards, 2012) project ‘Half ’, made through the artistry of makeup ‘in order to explore the outsiders superficial judgements of the same person before and after drug abuse’ (Payne, 2012). We were highly interested in his post production editing in which he created two halves; which unlike in our previous research, the two halves of the faces were made asymmetrical. He merged the two images to make the ‘before and afters’ more visible, and give more impact to its audience through fantastic styling and makeup artistry rather than too much photoshopping. This motivated us to create the hair flicks in the photoshoot rather than through post-production. Our original idea was to have our ‘before & afters’ side by side which included each group member’s original photograph, left symmetric face and right symmetric face. Sakovich therefore majorly inspired us to create more compact and dramatic images by combining them into one for person.
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Sebastian Bienick, a Polish artist, created a series of photographers with his anonymous and mysterious model who turned up unannounced at his apartment, telling him:
‘I want you to make photos with me. I don’t want any money for this, I just want you never to ask me for my name.’ (Anonymous, 2013)
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The story behind these photographers is almost as interesting as the images themselves. (Macias, 2013) Their series ‘Doublefaced’, is an ongoing experimental portraits project. Two highly simplified makeup faces are drawn onto both sides of the models face, with an object dividing these new halves. These images show her acting out her daily routine such as drinking coffee, taking a bath, travelling on the train; generally ‘capturing the daily life of a female with two faces’ (Azzarello, 2013). These images are undeniably striking in depicting this ‘two-faced’ woman and we were heavily influenced by his idea of splitting the face and creating two opposing sides. We loved how eye-catching he made his model look through abstraction of her face. Therefore we were inspired to do the same but in a different form by creating abstraction through our hair, as well as evolving our split faces, with his images as reference.
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STUDIES Studies have shown we interpret facial symmetry as an indicator of having good genes and good health. (Eden, n.d) This is why we call a symmetric face ‘beautiful’, because it is a judgement upon that persons health and vitality.
Large research projects were undertaken by Dr. Martin Gruendl and his team (2001) at the Universities of Regensburg and Rostock in Germany, which assessed facial attractiveness. From this research regarding ‘symmetry’ they found that facial symmetry does affect perceived attractiveness, as symmetrical faces are more attractive. However, the effect is hardly noticeable and the media are to blame for its oppressive influence on women. Their frequent reports on facial symmetry being a strong affect on beauty is questionable. In many cases, perfectly symmetric are judged as rather unattractive. Dr.Gruendl & his team’s research shows us that we are trying to become the ‘ideal women’, morphed by the media to make us keener consumers. Yet we are trying to become someone who is completely non existent, we are the victims of the media’s ‘self created, completely unrealistic ideal of beauty’.
‘self created, completely unrealistic ideal of beauty.’
(Dr. Gruendl, 2001)
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Left: Symmetrical face using the left half of the original face. Middle: Original face. Right: Symmetrical face using the right half of the original face.
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FINAL IMAGES
To challenge our symmetric ideals we tried to prove the surreal expectation we have to look ‘perfect’. By creating a wild symmetric pattern with our hair, we were able to create attention grabbing images which were not only eye catching because of their beauty, but for their spontaneity and composition. It was used as a tool to make it more obvious our faces were symmetrical, emphasising the bizarre and unnatural ideals our images represent and question. The summarised denotation of our quadriptych photographic series shows our group of 4 being shot in portrait style, with our hair being flicked in the air and shot in motion as it fell, which was symmetrically reflected through photoshop retouching. Our faces were also made perfectly symmetrical. We wished our images to have an oxymoronic tone. By having passive facial expressions, we juxtaposed our composed faces with our wild symmetrical hair. Our gaze maintains eye contact with the viewer, which gives the photographs the perception of openness and gives the viewer interest as they are engaged through eye contact as we would be with any physical human being. (Kuhnke, 2007) Our gazes also reflect the easy going, relaxed nature of our images, they are trying to gentley encourage the audience to take their time to
notice the symmetry of our faces rather than forcefully grab their attention. This is because we felt symmetry of the face is subtle and barely perceptible to the human eye initially, for that reason we kept our gaze impassive. Our stance and posture reflected the same composure so as to not reflect attention away from our faces and hair which are the main focal points of our images. This is also true of our backgrounds which, by keeping clear, the viewer’s focus is concentrated on the central subject in each of our images. By keeping most of the photographs’ composition clear, we were able to play around with wearing different outfits to promote the theme of diversity, giving ourselves a sense of individuality to juxtapose our perfectly symmetrical faces, which although our faces are still unique, they are bowing down to the media’s force by make ourselves into societies mould of beauty in an attempt to de-bunk the myth that symmetrical faces are better looking. Having our hair back out of our faces made our symmetry more accurate and we are therefore much more exposed, to make the viewer more comfortable to view our face. The bright lighting helps to make the symmetry and our faces more clear and noticeable. The summarised connotation for our quadriptych photographic series questions
DECONSTRUCTED 26
our beliefs in beauty myths created by the media to make us strive to be better looking, such as the symmetric beauty myth. It makes us associate the idea of symmetry being as unnatural and unrealistic as the styling of our hair. It would be physically impossible to recreate our hair style; in the same way it is impossible for us to recreate the beautiful women we see in magazine as they do not exist due to photoshop retouching making them false. Looking at our images you expect to associate symmetry in the face as being highly attractive, but when looking, one realises that this is not actually true. There is something eery about our faces, they are almost robotic and vacant. Imperfection and asymmetry is what makes us unique and real, as well as creates natural diversity, but these images make girls strive for mainstream beauty.
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We felt our images would fit well inside the pages of ‘AnOther’ magazine because of its political and artistic links to fashion. With AnOther ‘communicating information in a thought-provoking, stimulating, engaging way’ (AnOther magazine: online), we felt our series of images wanted to do the same. We wanted to get our audience to think more about our current beauty culture and it’s affect on society through an interestingly eye-catching series of photographs which are politica,l but styled to connect with fashion followers who read this magazine. We also felt the amount of white space used on their covers with minimal text would compliment our images by keeping them as close to their original form.
ANOTHER MAGAZINE
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CONCLUSION This essay set out to determine whether beauty lies in facial symmetry which we determined through our research into recent case studies to be false. Our essay points out the reality that trying to create perfect symmmetry in one’s face is unrealistic, unnatural and unachievable. In conclusion our research led us to create images which we feel de-bunk the myth that symmetry in the face makes one look more beautiful. We examined a range of media and took inspiration from a range of artists who examine the face, beauty and symmetry in a variety of ways which we were able to critically and creatively take influence from. Our images are eye-catching and surreal and reflect well the findings of researched studies that symmetry does not create beauty. It is surreal and our hair creates that idea through an interesting way of styling. word count: 1706
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REFERENCES
Anonymous. (2011). Perfect symmetry: How would you look if both sides of your face were identical? Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1367633/Perfect-symmetry-How-look-sides-face-identical.html. Last accessed 25th November 2013. AnOther Magazine (2009). About Us. Available [online]: http://www.anothermag.com/about-us. Last accessed 1st December 2013. Azzarello, N. (2013). portraits of the double-faced girl by sebastian bieniek. Available: http://www.designboom. com/art/portraits-of-the-double-faced-girl-by-sebastian-bieniek/. Last accessed 30th November 2013. Edwards, A. (2012). The two sides of drug abuse: The startling photos that show the ravaging effects of substance addiction Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232632/The-sides-drug-abuse-The-startling-photos-ravaging-effects-substance-addiction.html. Last accessed 27th November 2013. Eden, D. (n.d.). What Makes Us Attractive?. Available: http://www.viewzone.com/faces.html. Last accessed 29th November 2013. Gruendl, M., Braun, C., Marberger, C. & Scherber, C. (2001). Beautycheck - Symmetry Report. Available from: http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/symmetrie/ symmetrie.htm. Last accessed 30th November 2013 Kuhnke, E. (2007). The Eyes Have It. In: Body Language For Dummies. London: John Wiley & Sons. p75-90. Macias, A. (2013). This Mysterious Woman Is Always Photographed With A ‘Doubleface’. Available: http://www. businessinsider.com/doublefaced-woman-by-sebastian-bieniek-2013-11. Last accessed 27th November 2013. Payne, M. (2012). Portraits Before and After Drug Abuse. Available: http://www.featureshoot.com/2012/11/portraits-before-and-after-drug-abuse/. Last accessed 26th November 2013. Sedghi, A. (2013). UK plastic surgery statistics 2012: brows up, breasts down. Available: http://www.theguardian. com/news/datablog/2013/jan/28/uk-plastic-surgery-statistics-brow-lifts#_. Last accessed 20th November 2013. Summerson, K. (2012). What would we look like with perfectly symmetrical faces?. Available: http://www.psfk. com/2012/10/mirror-image-human-portraits.html. Last accessed 23rd November 2013. Wolf, N (1991). The Beauty Myth. London: William Morrow and Company.
IMAGE REFERENCES 1 : <http://trendland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/julian-wolkenstein_echoism-6.jpg> 2: <http://trendland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/julian-wolkenstein_echoism.jpg> 3: <http://i.huffpost.com/gen/859297/thumbs/o-ROMAN-SAKOVICH-HALF-facebook.jpg> 4: <http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_qt9HuvLi0w/UbOJfLW-1ZI/AAAAAAAADvc/Ers7QlIhKQw/s1024/Roman_Sakovich_009.jpg> 5: <http://www.romansakovich.co.uk/work/half/#.UqBrNZHoYzU> 6: <http://www.romansakovich.co.uk/work/half/#.UqBrNZHoYzU> 7: <http://www.romansakovich.co.uk/work/half/#.UqBrNZHoYzU> 8: <http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/528e36b46da8110e326d4a25-1200-800/waterdouble.jpg> 9: <http://www.lifo.gr/uploads/image/1200x0x1/560372/double-faced-portraits-sebastian-bieniek-designboom-30.jpg> 10: <http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1377599/thumbs/o-DOUBLEFACE-facebook.jpg> 11: <http://31.media.tumblr.com/25ca756ba9c28840699b65f26ede7bf6/tumblr_mtg2e4e2ph1rhabbco1_1280. jpg> 12: <http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/symmetrie/symmetrie.htm> 13: <http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/symmetrie/symmetrie.htm> 14: <http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/symmetrie/symmetrie.htm> 15: final edit group photoshoot photograph 16: final edit group photoshoot photograph 17: final edit group photoshoot photograph 18: final edit group photoshoot photograph 19: final edit group photoshoot photograph 20: final edit group photoshoot photograph 21: final edit group photoshoot photograph 22: final edit group photoshoot photograph 23: <http://www.cy-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/kate-moss-galliano-another-magazine-fall-2009.jpg>