Under the Spell of Filters — Authenticity and Aesthetics in the Age of Instagram
26 • 03 • 20Gáspár Kéri
Instagram’s visual culture is shaped by a simultaneous desire for authenticity and perfection. Filters, AI-generated faces, and the aesthetic logic of social media continually transform how we use images, continually redefining the place of portraiture and self-representation within contemporary visual culture. The stakes are not merely technical: how we present ourselves also reveals the collective image of humanity our society constructs.
Within Instagram’s logic, a photograph functions less as a mnemonic trace than as a social action. Sociologist and media researcher Nathan Jurgenson uses the term “social photo” to describe images used less for documentation than for sharing, presence, and interaction.[1] In this context, filters serve both the illusion of aesthetic perfection and that of performative authenticity. Furthermore, analog-style filters, which can never shed their artificial character, become part of the performative play of identity, much like artificially constructed representations of beauty that can be far from reality.
According to the recently deceased German art historian Hans Belting, portraiture has always possessed a dual nature, in which representation and projection—the human face and the cultural construction of identity—appear simultaneously.[2] Throughout its several-thousand-year history, portraits have served as icons, symbols of social status, and instruments of memory politics. Today, social media condenses these roles through the fast-paced logic of the attention economy. The selfie, for instance, simultaneously testifies to the body’s presence and to the ideal created by digital manipulation, filters, and retouching. Classical portraiture focused on remembrance and representation; now, social media images compete in a relentless race for visibility and likes.
Looking back at relatively recent artistic precedents, Richard Avedon’s portraits aimed to strip away psychological masks, while Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar explored the intimacy and vulnerability of the body. Yet these artistic strategies still stood in explicit opposition to the practices of artificial beauty cultures—mechanisms to which today’s filtered selfies have become far more closely aligned.
Fred Ritchin, an American curator, critic, and theorist, warned before the digital transition that digital images would destabilize photography’s connection to reality. His prediction has come true. Instagram and other platforms have made this effect dominant: the image is no longer evidence of reality but an aesthetic construction that takes on a life of its own online. As a result, parallel realities can now be constructed around a single individual through profile images completely detached from reality—a discrepancy often revealed only in face-to-face encounters. Nevertheless, the rhetoric of “authenticity” continues to thrive online. For instance, the aesthetics of hashtags like #nofilter or apparently spontaneous moments are as consciously constructed as those of classic filters.
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Fotó: Cindy Sherman: Untitled #627, 2010-2023 © Cindy Sherman Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Expanding on the intersection of art and social media, cultural historian Philip Gefter examines the relationship between the documentary tradition and aestheticized, autonomous artistic photography.[3] On Instagram, however, this boundary has virtually vanished: everyday selfies and works of high art appear on the same platform, reaching audiences through largely the same mechanisms of visibility and logic.
Artistic strategies now respond to new norms for social image production. For example, in 2024, Cindy Sherman presented a series at Photo Elysée in Lausanne, focusing on digital distortions, reality-distorting filters, and inverted beauty ideals.[4] Her images evoke grotesque traditions, referencing everything from Renaissance carnival figures to avant-garde photography while relentlessly criticizing the self-beautifying mechanisms of social media.
Earlier, Larry Sultan explored staged forms of intimate image use through the deconstruction of the family album,[5] while Jeff Wall[6] and Philip-Lorca diCorcia[7] created connections between everyday life and constructed worlds through staged documentary photography. In turn, Ryan McGinley’s deeply personal images of youth and the experience of freedom and self-discovery[8] demonstrated how the aesthetic of private photographs could become normative—first in gallery contexts and later within commercial photography. Likewise, Rineke Dijkstra’s thematic portrait series, which document personal and collective belonging, raise questions about social identity formation.[9] Finally, the later works of Chuck Close,[10] who turned to large-format photography after illness forced him to abandon painting, play with the digital fragmentation of the portrait, suggesting that the crisis of representation extends beyond social media.
More recently, the emergence of AI-generated models has posed yet another challenge for visual culture—and for the society that receives and interprets it. The fashion industry, for example, already employs AI figures that are almost indistinguishable from reality and, in some cases, even appear “perfect.” As a result, these figures set new beauty ideals against which real bodies, faces, and gestures seem measured. Such ideals may encourage increasingly distorted forms of self-presentation.[11] Moreover, the aesthetics of filters and retouching software can already integrate seamlessly with AI imagery, further blurring the boundary between the natural and the artificial. In this setting, the “authenticity” of photography becomes increasingly relative, and the face and body become digital constructs—reshaping the traditional function of portraiture.
The processes also affect everyday practices. Self-representation no longer aims to present the authentic self; rather, it becomes an aesthetic strategy. Moreover, filtered faces, carefully staged compositions based on repeating visual templates, and retouched bodies do not begin to function as falsifications but become part of the normative system established by social media. Still, nostalgia remains powerful. Filters that mimic Polaroid aesthetics or the visual language of deliberate spontaneity also promise the illusion of an “authentic” moment.
The social consequences are already visible—especially in the darker scenarios. For generations raised on Instagram aesthetics and filters, the image of the face and body becomes a manipulated construct shaped by predetermined norms. This reinforces self-esteem issues and contributes to the homogenization of visual culture. Aesthetic norms like the “beautiful face” or the “ideal body,” though relative, become globally standardized patterns in the online sphere.
A growing body of research warns that young people measure their own self-worth against filtered images. As a result, anxiety, body-image disorders, and the demand for cosmetic surgery continue to rise. TikTok and Instagram generate rapid visual templates that blur individual differences. The algorithmic distribution of images further reinforces standardization. Platforms grant more visibility to content that conforms to prevailing aesthetic norms and encourage users to adapt their self-representations accordingly.
The everyday use of photography has never been as extensive as it is today, and it is clear that the photographic image remains one of the most important media of social interaction. At the same time, however, this situation raises a serious dilemma for all of us: how to develop forms of visual self-representation capable of breaking the dominance of these norms and making space for diversity, for the aesthetics of difference, and for new forms of authenticity.
[1] Jurgenson, Nathan. The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media. Verso, 2019.
[2] Belting, Hans. Faces: A History of the Face. Princeton University Press, 2017.
[3] Gefter, Philip. Photography After Frank. Aperture, 2009.
[4] Kéri, Gáspár. “Undorodom attól, ahogyan az emberek szépnek láttatják magukat – Cindy Sherman legújabb munkái a Photo Elysée-ben” [“I Loathe the Way People Make Themselves Look Beautiful”: Cindy Sherman’s Latest Works at Photo Elysée]. Punkt, 19 Apr. 2024,
https://punkt.hu/2024/04/19/undorodom-attol-ahogyan-az-emberek-szepnek-lattatjak-magukat-cindy-sherman-legujabb-munkai-a-photo-elyseeben/. Accessed 11 Aug. 2025.
[5] Sultan, Larry. Pictures from Home. Abrams, 1992.
[6] Wall, Jeff. Figures & Places: Selected Works from 1978–2000. Prestel, 2001.
[7] diCorcia, Philip-Lorca. Philip-Lorca diCorcia. MoMA, 1995. (Contemporaries: A Photography Series).
[8] McGinley, Ryan. Whistle for the Wind. Rizzoli, 2012.
[9] Dijkstra, Rineke. Portraits. Schirmer/Mosel, 2004.
[10] Close, Chuck. Chuck Close: Photographer. Prestel, 2014.
[11] Patakfalvi, Dóra. “Az MI-modellek megkülönböztethetetlenek, tökéletesek, és ennek legfeljebb a plasztikai ipar örülhet”
[“AI Models Are Indistinguishable and Perfect—Perhaps Only the Cosmetic Surgery Industry Benefits”]. Telex, 29 July 2025,
https://telex.hu/eletmod/2025/07/29/mesterseges-mi-modell-guess-reklam-elso-vogue. Accessed 11 Aug. 2025.
