Tracing the Real History of Digital Art — And Where the Facetune Portraits Belong

Digital art is often framed as a recent phenomenon, especially with the rise of AI-generated imagery. But the field has been evolving for more than half a century.

A look at how digital art evolved from early computer experiments to today’s algorithm-driven beauty apps — and how the Facetune Portraits challenge the ideology behind digital perfection.

Its roots can be traced back to the 1960s, when artists such as Harold Cohen began collaborating with computers. His program AARON wasn’t just a tool — it was a generative partner, expanding what artistic authorship could mean.

The 1980s and 1990s broadened this conversation further. Artists like Nam June Paik used video and satellite transmissions to collapse physical boundaries, while net-art pioneers such as JODI and Olia Lialina explored the aesthetics and politics of the early web. Their work challenged the neutrality of interfaces and foregrounded the role of code in shaping experience. (Lialina was an early mentor of my digital art practice, and we even presented my gif work together in Bologna in 2014.)

By the 2000s and 2010s, digital art expanded into virtual reality, immersive worlds, and blockchain-based art. Today, AI is often celebrated as a creative engine — as seen in the generative spectacle of artists like Refik Anadol.

It’s within this lineage that the Facetune Portraits position themselves. But rather than embracing AI’s expansive potential, the series examines a more ordinary digital tool: Facetune. Designed to smooth, reshape, and perfect the human face, Facetune reveals a side of AI centered not on creativity, but on conformity.

By translating these digitally “perfected” Miss Universe contestants into paintings, the series exposes how much individuality is lost in the pursuit of algorithmic beauty. The work asks us to consider not only what technology can create, but what it makes inevitable.

The Facetune Portraits expand the history of digital art by shifting the conversation from innovation to ideology. Digital art isn’t only about new forms of expression — it’s also about the tools that quietly shape our identities and expectations.