BETWEEN BEASTS AND ANGELS

I've Got Your Nose by Jonas Blume is an experimental video addressing the black box that is consumer-grade mobile photo editing software. Seeding an authentic photo as a starting point, it is "enhanced" with each pass. Even though each pass administers a minuscule change, sometimes barely perceivable, it eventually results in a picture that has very little in common with the initial input, but rather drastically points out the underlying parameters that govern the software, and the trajectory of its "beautification". The video ends when the algorithm of the app fails to recognize its own creation as a detectable face. Instead of exponentially enhancing the image towards angelic beauty, the process culminates in a creation barely recognizable as human.

 

Jonas Blume is a Berlin-based conceptual video and installation artist. His art is centered around the theme of the relationship between online and offline self, and how existence in each realm spawns a multidimensional identity that is neither entirely virtual, nor limited to IRL (in real life) personae. When an individual can exist as multiple entities unconstrained from their IRL identity and sociality, this bears enormous potential for egality and liberty, but also prompts us to redefine what is real and what is virtual. In 2016, Blume received his M.A. in Visual and Media Anthropology from Free University, Berlin. He also holds a B.F.A. in Sculpture (major) and Art History (minor) from Pratt Institute, New York, USA. He received the Pratt Circle Award for Academic Excellence in 2013.

http://www.jonasblume.com/