"UnBeautiful" addresses the issue of female body misrepresentation in large community-developed AI models, which are often depicted in an excessively sexualized and fetishized manner. The project aims to reclaim control over the portrayal of women's bodies by embracing their less idealized aspects and advocating for the acceptance of imperfections, using AI-induced glitches as metaphors for the inherent beauty of these flaws.
The project was developed by fine-tuning several diffusion models on two hundred photographs from Tau’s personal collection of analog film shots taken during their carefree twenties with a LOMO LC-A camera. These photos, capturing friends and random night outings without filters, led to Tau's initial fascination with Lomography. The project thus comes full circle, from the reality and color misinterpretations of lomographic images to the AI’s deformed visions when learning about a new subject.
The women depicted are sometimes broken, deformed, and transformed into geometric forms, objectified against a backdrop of a photographic aesthetic marred by intentional glitches. Tau seeks to emphasize the semi-authentic documentary value of this imagery, inviting viewers to reconsider beauty standards potentially engineered by AI. This exploration serves as a critical commentary on gender, technology, and art, highlighting the subjective nature of beauty within digital spaces and questioning the ethics and impact of computer vision techniques.
