Andreas Schmelas & Stefan Stubbe (DE)
Artificial Smile
The tools we use change the way we perceive and understand ourselves. Since the 1950s the proliferation of the amateur camera has allowed for the mass documentation of our individual self and our portrait. The staging of the image and how we ‘look’ or represent our selves and our body changed as we learnt in part to ‘play-to-the-camera’. Editing softwares such as Photoshop lead to further changes and to the ‘touching’ up of our image in the pursuit of ‘perfection’. While contemporary digital image processing techniques such as the auto-retouch function enables digital cameras to alter your image in real-time.
The camera ‘Artificial Smile’ plays with the notion of perfection and auto-retouch. Created as a picture apparatus, it shows only smiling people’s picture to be taken, irrespective of their former emotional state. To achieve this camera takes a picture but overlays it with a smiling mouth drawn from a pre-existing pool of pictures with smiling faces. To generate to maximum level of exaggeration the replaced smiling mouth impression is matched as realistically as possible to that of the initial portrait taken.
About the artists:
Andreas Schmelas is fascinated by the exploration of biological and natural systems. This knowledge is reflected in his work, through different digital media, from software through to interactive installations. Originally from Tubingen, Germany, he now lives and works as an artist and freelance creative in Berlin. He holds a Bachelor of Multimedia Arts from Middlesex University and at the moment is completing further studies at Berlin’s University of the Arts. Alongside his solo projects, he regularly collaborates with others to create new projects and is a member of the artists’ collective Herrmidi. In 2009 he joined forces with two colleagues to form the design&art agency invertednothing.
Stefan Stubbe is faszinated by observing the behavior of human being in daily life, his work reveals some rather concealed phenomenons or ecological problems. Using different media from print to software or
interactive installations his work a has wide-ranging expression. Born in Oldenburg he lived 6 years of his childhood in Brazil in Sâo Paulo. He went to Berlin in 2004 where he is currently living and working as freelance designer and finishing his studies at Berlin’s University of the Arts. Already having designed several online-games for Extrajetzt® , he is also interested in the creation of game-like behaviors or the engagement of the user through reactive graphics. This skill is supported by the knowledge of illustration, animation and his work with 3d-software.
http://www.stefanstubbe.com/
Andreas Schmelas and Stefan Stubbe, Artificial Smile: UM Exhibition, Opening Thur 12 Nov, 22hrs, ECV Fiat Garage (new space), Av. 24 de Julho, 60 [Santos], 1200-869. Exhibition runs to 27 Nov (Mon-Fri, 12-19hrs).
