Vending machine that offers ‘just one face’ installed for good cause | Weird | News
A vending machine full of identical faces was set up to demonstrate how the ‘algorithm’ reinforces a single ideal of beauty. Dove unveiled The Beauty Machine at London’s Waterloo Station this week, with a device that appears to offer variety but delivers the same face over and over again.
Almost half of women and girls in the UK feel pressure to change their appearance, even if they know an image is fake, according to Dove’s State of Beauty report. Dove says the show is a reminder that our differences are what make us beautiful.
Women are invited to ‘celebrate their beauty’ by taking a photo of themselves and then scanning the code of the machine or participating in the campaign with the hashtag #DoveOpenCall. The wizards will start appearing on billboards in Waterloo within 48 hours.
Marcela Melero, Head of Growth Marketing at Dove, said: “In the age of algorithms, online beauty is starting to look the same. So why do algorithms decide what is beautiful? Dove wants to remind women that beauty in the real world is much more creative, unique and impressive than what we often see online.”
“Our goal here is that beauty is individual and defined by women themselves, not how algorithms choose to enhance it.”
Dr. is an international broadcaster, author and lecturer on the impact of technology on our lives. Aleks Krotoski said: “Algorithms influence us much more than most people realize. They reward the aesthetics and images that create the most engagement, which means certain faces and beauty ideals are shown forever.
“Over time, these repetitions have narrowed the range of beauty we see online, creating the impression that there is a single ideal, even though true beauty is much more diverse across communities and cultures around the world.”
Senior Research Fellow at UWE, Bristol Appearance Research Centre, Dr. Nicole Paraskeva said: “We know from years of research that seeing idealized and digitally edited images can make people feel worse about their bodies and feel pressured to fit narrow standards of beauty.
“As ‘perfect’ faces become more common across platforms, it becomes more difficult for women to recognize and value their own unique beauty.
“These technologies are advancing rapidly, and so should we.”
