Gretchen Andrew’s ‘Facetune Portraits’: Questioning Edited Women’s Photos on Social Media

American artist Gretchen Andrew is investigating just how far technology has influenced the conventional representation of women in social media. Andrew does so through her series Facetune Portraits, where she prints selfies of both herself and celebrities, with oil paint. After a painting is completed, Andrew uses a custom-made robot to paint visible “facetune” modifications onto its surface. This creates visible edits to the photo so that the original selfie better suits Western beauty standards.

By doing this, she makes the act of “face-tuning” or photoshopping women’s bodies visible. This makes her audience question the intent behind such practices that are often found on social media or advertising. Giving her viewers the ability to think deeper about how so much of today’s representation of women’s bodies has been altered to suit unrealistic beauty standards. A norm that has proven to be damaging to people’s mental and physical health as they strive to achieve technologically altered images that do not reflect reality. This makes Andrew’s pieces reflect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality and Good Health and Well-Being.

Facetune Selfie by Gretchen Andrew, part of the Facetune Portraits series. Image courtesy of Gretchen Andrew’s website.

Andrew purposefully limited her Facetune Portraits series to women’s selfies since she wants to probe into how selfies can either be tools of empowerment or further oppression. In the past, selfies were considered a tool to give women freedom from the male gaze, due to how selfies allowed women to quickly take photos of themselves, no matter what they looked like or where they were.

Selfies gave women freedom from the need to perform, to look or act a certain way for the camera and for the public’s eye. Hence, for a brief period of time, selfies meant that society was able to get a more authentic look into everyday women’s lives, appreciated as they are.

However, then came what is now known as facetuning, or back in the day, photoshopping. Facetune, as well as similar applications, provide women with a quick and easy way to adjust their selfies to suit the male gaze. It gives them the ability to appear polished and beautiful regardless of where they are, altering their bodies and facial structures. This process creates fictional representations of real women.

Zurich Selfie Facetune Portrait, 1.1 by Gretchen Andrew, part of the Facetune Portraits series. Image courtesy of @gretchenandrew/Instagram.

A study by UK non-profit, Emotion Matters, found that 88 per cent of women compare themselves to images found online, with more than half of them stating that they found the comparisons to be “unfavourable” of how they look.

The organization also found that this outlook has led women to have a negative view of their body image and negatively altered their relationship with food, making them undergo particular diets to reach the desired thin and yet toned body type.

Bodytune Kim Kardashian Selfie by Gretchen Andrew, part of the Facetune Portraits series. Image courtesy of Gretchen Andrew’s website.

But, as seen in Gretchen Andrew’s piece, Bodytune Kim Kardashian Selfie, which shows how Kim Kardashian herself, a celebrity known for being the poster child of such a body type, has edited her photo in order to obtain the body type she is known for showing to the world.

Not only that, Andrew’s choice of using a robot hand to expose the edits in these photos also helps audiences delve into the role that artificial intelligence and algorithms play in perpetuating these body and beauty standards. Technology like this creates an echo chamber where only content that resembles already popular content is promoted to its users. There is, as a result, little to no room for creators with bodies that don't fit Eurocentric beauty standards.

Kylie Jenner Selfie Facetune Portrait, Met Gala 1.1 (Silver Ground) by Gretchen Andrew, part of the Facetune Portraits series. Image courtesy of Gretchen Andrew’s website.

At the end of the day, Gretchen Andrew’s Facetune Portraits is a powerful interrogation into the influence of technology on the representation of women in social media. Her pieces immediately allow her viewers to understand that most of the images they see of “perfect” women’s bodies on social media are fabricated photographs that have been created by the algorithm as much as they have been by human hand. Hopefully, by shedding light on this, Andrew can take the burden of conforming to unattainable body and beauty standards off women’s shoulders.

Find out more about Facetune Portraits and other pieces by Gretchen Andrew by checking their Instagram on @gretchenandrew.