4 November 2025  Art Meets the Selfie GenerationA new art and media education project in Vienna connects historical portraiture with today's selfie culture. YOUareART – Unfiltered Beauty explores how ideals of beauty and self-perception have changed over time, from painted faces in museums to digitally filtered images on social media. The project started in January 2025 and has offered workshops since this summer at two major Viennese institutions: the Heidi Horten Collection and the Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Participants reflect on the influence of classical artworks, digital filters, and media trends on personal and collective ideas of beauty. YOUareART is organized by the Austrian Ministry of Health (BMASGPK) and the Austrian National Public Health Institute (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, GÖG) in cooperation with the FEM Süd and MEN health centers, the partner museums, and the creative agency dasWeil. The project runs until June 2026 and includes public events, workshops, and a visual campaign distributed online and across social media platforms.The AR App: When Paintings Start to SpeakA key feature of the initiative is an augmented reality (AR) app created in collaboration with Artivive. Visitors can use the app in participating museums or via the website youareart.at to see famous artworks digitally transformed with contemporary beauty filters. For example, Rembrandt's Portrait of a Young Woman (1632) from the Academy's collection appears altered with smooth skin and modern retouching effects. The result encourages reflection on how digital modification changes perception and challenges authenticity. The app connects classical art with current technologies to make questions about media, image manipulation, and self-perception tangible for young audiences.Workshops on Self-Perception and Digital CultureThe project's workshops invite school groups and youth organizations to discuss and create around topics such as self-confidence, body image, and social media pressure. Psychologists and health experts from FEM Süd and MEN lead discussions on how digital filters and visual culture influence well-being and self-acceptance. Participants analyze historical portraits, experiment with the AR app, and reflect on their own image-making practices. These activities combine artistic engagement with critical thinking about digital aesthetics and media use. Anyone interested in taking part can contact the organizers directly by email at the project's website, youareart.at.A Campaign for AwarenessThe campaign's posters and social media visuals — designed by dasWeil Kreativagentur — combine fragments of classical paintings with digitally altered faces. The contrast highlights how technology reshapes identity and beauty ideals. Through art, YOUareART encourages reflection on individuality and authenticity, showing that beauty has always been a social concept — and that every person is, in a way, a work of art.Images, from left: Poster from the YOUareART campaign showing a digitally transformed version of Rembrandt’s 'Portrait of a Young Woman' (1632). The image combines the original oil painting with a contemporary beauty filter, visualizing how digital retouching alters the perception of individuality and authenticity. Credit: © Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien / Photo: dasWeil Kreativagentur. Right: Poster from the YOUareART campaign featuring a work by Markus Schinwald from the Heidi Horten Collection. The image juxtaposes classical portrait aesthetics with digital modification, symbolizing the interplay between self-image, identity, and artistic transformation. Credit: © Heidi Horten Collection / Photo: dasWeil Kreativagentur. |