DSL Magazine: Issue 11

66 Ye Funa Beauty+ Save the Real World (2019) Ten years after her painterly documentation of web browsing, Ye Funa maintains an interest in screen- based representation and the construction of identity. Beauty+ Save the Real World (2019) is an examination of the popular photo- editing app Meitu Xiuxiu (known as Beauty Plus in English) and its role in the construction of “ideal selves” through the filtering of reality. Harnessing the irony of Meitu Xiuxiu’s tagline “Meet your better self”, Ye Funa’s Beauty+ Save the Real World combines installation and performance, prompting a reflection on how beautifying apps and their camera filters are allowing users to redefine their looks and even engineer new bodies: paradoxically, as the artist notes, the possibility of manipulating one’s self-image has the potential to free users from constrained ideals of beauty. Installation view of Beauty+ Save the Real World (2019) at Chinternet Ugly at CFCCA 2019. Photo by Michael Pollard. Courtesy of the artist