Plus Belle Haleine
Animated Gif. Based on: Man Ray, Belle Haleine, 1920
With my limited French language knowledge, I decided that the woman in the branding was called “Haleine” and she could be more beautiful. (Although I don’t think that’s her name…, sometimes, it’s good to be ignorant so I can get lost. Is that Duchamp in disguise? )
These days, beautifying or changing our external appearances is easily achievable with just a few clicks on a mobile app. I wonder what the dada/conceptual artists of 100 years ago would think about today’s technology and its implication on ready made.
For this work, I wanted to take on the ready made concept, so I mostly used freely available mobile apps and their effect. I was quite amazed how much I was able to get done on mobile apps only…!
Following is the list of software I used to create the work.
1. Photoshop (Mac) – Edited the original text to “Plus Belle Haleine”
2. Snow (Mobile app) – Added animated filters to her face. Haleine’s face was recognized via Snow app’s face recognition technology. I displayed an edited image from photoshop on a computer screen, then fixed my mobile phone (with a front facing camera) to detect the face. Since only one filter was applicable at a time, I filmed several times with a same angle.
3. Splice (Mobile app) – Composited multiple videos together, changed the overall color tone of the video and sped it up
4. Video Crop (Mobile app) – The original video taken via “Snow” app shows its logo on the bottom, so I used this app to crop the logo and other unwanted parts out.
5. Giphy.com (WebSite) – Created a logo-free gif file
