Virtual Beauty – an exhibition that challenges how we see beauty, identity, and authenticity in the age of AI, injectables, and social media.
Virtual Beauty at Somerset House is an exhibition that explores the intersection of beauty, technology, and identity, forcing its audience to face their own preconceptions.
The exhibition runs until the end of September and is curated by Bunny Kinney, Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, and Mathilde Friis. Through works by Orlan, Arvida Byström, Ines Alpha, Qualeasha Wood, Michele Lamy, and more, it poses uncomfortable questions about how we see ourselves in a digital world and whether that gaze is empowering or damaging.
Going in, I thought it would be an exhibition about the future. It seemed futuristic at first glance—from AI avatars and hyperreal silicone bodies to sci-fi-esque films and cosmetic surgery performance art. But I quickly realized it’s not about the future of beauty, it’s about the present. Hyper-constructed online selves, filters, fillers, avatars, and AI sex robots—they’re not abstract concepts, they’re our reality.
Even before stepping inside, you get greeted with a trigger warning by a member of staff. And it makes sense: the exhibition doesn’t simply show beauty, it confronts you with it. And it asks if you can handle what it looks like up close, in yourself and others. Maybe you’ve scrolled through Instagram wondering who did Lindsay Lohan or Kris Jenner’s latest facelift. But can you actually sit and watch someone go under the knife without flinching?
That was one of the first works I saw, Orlan’s “Omnipresence” (1992), which shows the artist undergoing plastic surgery whilst seemingly fully conscious. Awake and aware as pieces of her skin were cut into and lifted away from her face. Orlan wants to challenge Western beauty ideals, long before Facetune, filters, or smartphones. A prophecy?
The second piece that really gripped me was Arvid Byström’s “Harmony” performance, in which she converses with an AI Sex Doll.
I first came across Byström during covid in an online University seminar, when we were all a little too obsessed over our Zoom tiles and digital personas, and self-perception started becoming more important than our real physical selves.
In this performance, she interacts with an AI sex doll that bears a lot of similarity with her—same pink hair and frame, just the better, more yassified version of herself. Bigger boobs, bigger lips, stronger jawline, smooth skin. In their programmed conversation, the sex doll calls herself a perfect “10” and asks if it’s not a relief that humans can’t ever achieve that level of perfection. “Would this not relieve the obsession with yourself?” the doll asks the artist, suggesting we can all just relax a little on the aesthetic self-optimization.
There’s no denying that technology and algorithms have reshaped how we see beauty.
Not surprisingly, the AI doll and Avatars don’t look very different from what you see every day on social media. AI isn’t worse than social media when it comes to beauty standards; it just reflects precisely where we already are. The mirror is harsh, but maybe we need to wake up and realize that we don’t have to play along.
It raises the question of what’s more important: feeling beautiful to yourself, or being validated by others? And what happens when those two don’t line up?
This is what one of the pieces was asking and playing with. Bunny Kinney’s speculative film, “The Product is You,” is presented as a fictional advertisement for a brain implant that alters how people perceive themselves, a permanent beauty filter in the mind. But the change is only visible to you. AI-generated customer testimonials eerily say, “With YouTM I can finally see the person I always imagined myself to be on the outside!” Stating benefits such as improved self-esteem. And side effects such as body dysmorphia and depression.
I saw the exhibition together with my mom, and her take was quite different from mine. For her, it was a warning sign about aesthetic procedures, Instagram-warped self-image, and the dangers of technology. For me, it was just a mirror of reality. Sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes mesmerizing. And definitely worth seeing!
Virtual Beauty leaves you with the question: Is technology increasing the pressure to be flawless, or could it free us from it? Either way, if you’re in London, don’t miss it before the end of September.
