The Unseen Scars of Social Media Filters

AI wants us to be perfect.But perfection is just another word for control. Social Media Filters.

When I began exploring digital beauty tools, I realized they weren’t only smoothing skin — they were smoothing identity. Facetune Portraits grew from that realization: that our visual culture is quietly standardizing us through code, compressing individuality into a single, algorithm-approved version of “beautiful.”

 AI-driven beauty standards are compressing us into a controlled and homogenized idea of beauty. My work exposes the unseen scars of social media filters.

The edits are subtle — a narrower nose, lighter skin, fuller lips — but the psychological effect is enormous. Each filtered image whispers a suggestion: be less of yourself. And over time, those whispers turn into a chorus.

My work makes those invisible manipulations visible. The Facetune Portraits reveal the unseen scars of digital beautification — not the kind you can touch, but the kind that shape how we see ourselves. These images expose what AI thinks beauty should look like, and what gets lost in the process.

I’m not against technology. I’m against its silence — the way it shapes our desires without ever announcing its intentions. Art gives me a way to talk back, to make the invisible systems of control visible again.

Now part of the Whitney Museum’s permanent collection, Facetune Portraits reflects a conversation between art and algorithm. It’s about reclaiming authorship — about insisting that the face unfiltered, unoptimized, uncorrected, still has power.

The unseen scars of filters are everywhere — in our photos, our mirrors, our language. But the first step to healing them is to see them.