#netartzine

Instaesthetic:  An aesthetic that is both pleasing and beautiful to the beholder, or possibly the opposite. Often times, it is created instantaneously or reminds a person of an instant moment in time or of an instant photo filter. In some way, shape or form, instaesthetic must contain qualities that represent instantaneousness and aesthetic. Typically, this aesthetic is created using a tool or program on the computer to render a digital image. Photography and generative art can often times be associated with this practice.

To better understand this new term, my colleagues and I put our heads together in collaboration and created our own Net Art Zine. We did not give ourselves any rules and left it up to the individual artist to define the term according to their own understanding. Soon, I will make an online version of this printed book where viewers online can get access to and grasp a better understanding of this term. But for now, I would like to talk about the six pages I created demonstrating the instaesthetic.

For my six pages, I defined and showed what instaesthetic could look like or resemble.  I used creative coding to demonstrate this concept. However, the instaesthetic is not limited to only using code as a medium. But rather, any tool or software available on a computer or other form of technology is acceptable for use. Here, I used the software program Processing – a Java language. Code as a medium allows me to find an unexpected result. The results can be random and sometimes are dependent upon the decisions of the computer. These decisions all happen instantly. I am intrigued by the relationship between computer language and human vision. I find it striking how numbers and lines of code can be altered only slightly to create results that are dramatically different. The images created are the results of human and computer intelligence showing how both are dependent upon each other.

Cyber-security, data collection and hacking are huge issues that deserve more attention today. Keeping our private information private is crucial to our human survival. Once our data is hacked, our identities, businesses, money, and valuables can be stolen. Anything important could vanish. It is ever important for us to make huge moves towards protecting ourselves and improving our cyber-security online. Data breaches and hacking are still exponentially rising. We must do something to stop it. Our information is no longer safe online. Trusting services is almost impossible since everything is hack-able. The images created using Processing all relate to hacking data and altering identities. Every image was taken in real-time and screenshotted to capture a single moment in time. This single moment carries an instant aesthetic (or instaesthetic) using data and information. On one page, I collected public Facebook images from random profiles around world. I used these images as the pixels of my own face (or another viewer’s) using a live camera. This piece gives a reflection of my identity through the identities of profile pictures of real people from around the globe. Refer to Stolen Identity for more information.

Across other pages, I used a similar method of data collection to interact with the viewer’s identity. Nothing about this method is illegal which is something I ask the viewers to question and think more about. One page shows random public information from addresses to hacked credit card numbers available online, raining down on me. Another page, shows my identity through letters of real people’s names randomly arranged.  The remaining pages focus on using the computers vision to alter my identity. Using an Xbox Kinect and Processing, the computer can get a live depth-map of any person using an IR camera. With the programs I build in Processing, I can alter a private photo and glitch it according to random small changes in the code. Every image that gets glitched, gives me a surprising result that changes my identity to something unrecognizable. Again, this work shows our everyday interaction with computers. It relates our identity through technology and the results are instantly created in real-time. This is my definition of Instaesthetic. For a more comprehensive definition, please look at the entire Net Art Zine, which will be available here soon.