Tale as Old as Time: On the Second Wave of Selfie Feminism in the Age of AI

Time is racing. It has been almost a decade since “Body Anxiety” made waves and it is still cited today. The curators, both artists, were surprised by the media interest back then. As often happens when it comes to women’s bodies and self-representation, voices quickly grew loud and critical. The artists and curators faced various accusations: that they spoke for other women, that too many white women were represented, and that some women were showing themselves too sexily.

It was quite a stir when female artists began sharing photos of themselves on social media. Petra Collins, Arvida Byström, Molly Soda, Audrey Wollen and Leah Schrager, for example, depicted themselves as feminine, sexy and sad. Lost in thought, they gazed into their smartphones, mirrors, or the eyes of the viewer. There was pink everywhere, hair on their legs and underarms, and blood in their granny panties. They had to face questions about whether this was feminism or marketing and whether they seriously wanted to combat patriarchy with selfies. They were labeled narcissistic and selfish, and their images were deemed pornographic and sexist.

Are we experiencing the second wave of selfie feminism shaped by AI?

While Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir shaped thinking about gender and power far beyond their time with their writings, today’s generation of feminists communicates using hashtags like #metoo on social media. The word feminism suddenly appeared on tote bags, T-shirts and underwear, which is why the fourth wave of feminism is often dismissed as a fashion trend. The women’s movement is famously divided into waves. Women had to fight for political and legal equality in the first and second waves of feminism, focusing on fundamental issues like women’s suffrage, social justice, and self-determination. In art, there was a struggle against the dominance of men, addressing stereotypical representations of femininity, the male gaze, and the objectification of women. In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls famously asked: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”

Critics are astonished that less than 25 years later, young women on social media lament that they are confronted with hate online and receive death threats when they share photos of themselves with hair on their legs. Kunstforum stated in 2019: “Even when they deal with supposed flaws like body hair, skin issues, or disproportionate body measurements in their tearful selfies, these photos consistently foreground images that emphasize their femininity, conveying a strong urge for self-presentation.” The artists were accused of wanting to satisfy the male gaze; indeed, this was seen as the provocation: voyeurism and the prolonged search for identity on social media.

Meanwhile, artists like Leah Schrager made clear what they had achieved in the age of social media. In her essay for the exhibition “Body Anxiety,” Schrager, who has worked long as a model and dancer, explained: “Tired of being disowned of my work, my image, and my sense of self as an artist, I began to move into visual art to gain the agency I craved. […] In my current work, I take on all roles: photographer, choreographer, model, muse, performer, painter, image-maker, producer, web designer, marketing director, artist.”

When the artists took on all these roles themselves, they suddenly ran into walls on social media. Their images were censored. Instagram did not allow pubic hair, menstrual blood and female nipples, for example, deeming them “inappropriate.” In 2013, a bikini selfie by Petra Collins was censored. Why? Because a few pubic hairs were visible. Collins complained on Twitter about the censorship by Instagram. This led artists in the following years to repeatedly post images that did not conform to the norm, otherwise known as community guidelines on Instagram.

Can a woman just overreact?

Some time ago, I noticed that the selfies of these artists were changing. They became even sexier or introduced new themes. When I talked to Leah Schrager, she told me that she had just had her second child. Because of this, her themes had changed. Schrager suddenly no longer had the ability to work as an artist in the same way as before; she simply was no longer in control of her own time. Alongside Photoshop, artificial intelligence came into play. She describes working with AI as a “collaborative dance.” She still photographs herself, and then it continues with AI. She anonymizes her face and body, focusing on shared experiences. A new role has entered her life: the artist as a mother. She shows how she navigates life as an artist between the stroller and the studio. There are simply never enough arms for all the tasks that need to be done.

While the smartphone was used for authentic self-presentation, AI makes the opposite possible: Imagine what if… And this in the past, present and future. This is also precisely what the title “Future Pasts, Past Futures” by Margaret Murphy, an artist based in LA, suggests. Murphy studied photography and works as a freelance photographer for the New York Times with a camera and as an artist with AI on her smartphone. “The absurdity of AI-generated art is reminiscent of adolescence. As a teenager, nothing makes sense; everything feels exaggerated and extreme. Expectations about how things will turn out—sometimes met, sometimes not. These expectations are heightened, thanks to hormonal changes and a lack of life lessons to draw from. As time passes and memories fade, technology both helps us recall and forget our pasts more swiftly,” writes Murphy.

The results when working with text-to-image prompts are still flawed, and that’s exactly what Murphy works with. The images produced by AI are as surreal and absurd as the perspective on events during adolescence. And a year later, she zoomed in even closer to the process of growing up with her series “Blank Spaces,” in which she asks: “If you could go back and read your teenage diaries, would you?”

In social media, we often share details of our lives too freely. The timeline becomes a digital diary. Thoughts are shared instantly, gaining a significance and weight in daily life that they might not have if there weren’t the possibility to share a feeling immediately and receive a reaction. Female artists who work with technology and are present on social media quickly recognize problems and challenges.

Artist Gretchen Andrew was said to be on the cover of Artforum according to Google, and she has won the prestigious Turner Prize. Both statements are false. In 2020, she told me in a conversation: “I use the search engine’s inability to read wishes. I want to be on the cover of Artforum, very clearly. People understand that you want to achieve something and can infer that wish from my drawn title of Artforum. The internet only knows relevance.”

Almost five years have passed, and we are speaking again. This time about AI and feminism. “Diversity collapses,” Andrew says. She has not lost sight of the topic of beauty ideals and has therefore looked more closely at Facetune apps. Influencers are under great pressure to conform to beauty standards. Their faces are seen and commented on daily by millions of people. A portrait is supposed to show a person with all their individual features. However, Facetune apps do the exact opposite: They ensure that we all look similarly beautiful and flawless. In her series “Facetune Portraits,” Andrew collaborates with influencers to demonstrate what it means when a face is stripped of its individuality by an algorithm.

With AI, suddenly everything is possible. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish a fake from an original. I must admit: I recently fell for something. And that, even though I should have known better. Yes, social media is used as a stage by artists who are at home on the internet. But when it actually happens, you feel somewhat unprepared. For months, Arvida Byström posted provocative images of herself on Twitter that you would rather expect behind the paywall of OnlyFans. Yes, the images were pornographic. I wondered what was going on, but the thought that it was a performance did not cross my mind. Amazing, I know. Suddenly, the revelation came on Instagram and in a series of interviews, including in Dazed. Arvida Byström, artist and model, is actually selling nude images of herself. Well, nude images generated by AI based on photos. Byström had stumbled upon a website that claimed “it can undress anyone.” She immediately realized that people would make money with AI-generated nudes of others, so she wanted to take matters into her own hands.

Sarah Friend has taken it a step further with her project “Prompt Baby.” She sold AI-generated nude images of herself as NFTs without initially selling an actual image. The buyers just acquired placeholder images. To receive the artwork, they had to send a prompt to the artist which automatically begins with the words “A photo of Sarah Friend.” She then decided whether to accept, decline, or request modifications to the prompt. Friend emphasizes that consent should be the foundation of human interaction, even in the age of AI.