Beauty is a central preoccupation of contemporary society, which is symbiotically bound to social media, the “hot” media of the 21st century. Today, through various means of enhancing and augmenting the body, from plastic surgery to the much simpler practice of virtual surgery, it has become possible to pursue the “Greek ideal”: the appearance of perfect, unreal proportions and an almost godlike beauty. However, the way contemporary society defines beauty is conditioned by the mass media’s exploitation of something as old as humankind itself - instinct, or more precisely, the phenomenon of the supernormal stimulus, which makes Snapchat’s exaggeratedly large eyes appear so irresistibly appealing. Artist Marina Rajšić introduces us to this “new” world through her digital artwork How Is Beauty Defined. The work consists of a series of videos subjected to Snapchat filters. In the video, which provides an overview of the artist’s desktop, we follow the creation of a collage depicting a “hybrid beauty” constructed from idealized female body parts drawn from different periods throughout history. Also visible on the desktop is a video feed of the artist’s face captured through her webcam, onto which Snapchat filters are continuously applied. The video concludes ironically with a YouTube clip titled How to Be the Perfect Woman (According to Men). Ultimately, the work raises a fundamental question: What is beauty today, and who or what dictates it?
— Mirna Šumberac, curator
