GANGNAM MAKEOVER (2020~)

Gangnam Makeover is an online participatory augmented reality(AR) intervention. It collects Korean womens’ thoughts about beauty and superimposes them over cosmetic surgery advertisements at Sinsa subway station.

The project aims to “makeover” two subway stations in the Gangnam district in South Korea from a place that propagates a narrow definition of beauty to a space of solidarity where women can share, imagine and establish their own visions of beauty.

The project explores the potential for AR to augment our society by envisioning alternative realities.

AR Application Documentation

Beauty that I dream of: Something everyone is born with. Something that grows by loving yourself and others.

Beauty is all of us who breathe and live. It's not something that can be standardized by someone.

How to use Augmented Reality: Messages will show up when you point your camera to cosmetic surgery advertisements in Sinsa or Apgujeong stations.

Virtual Sinsa Documentation

Visit GNMO.NET to visit Virtual Sinsa from your desktop.

Gangnam Makeover is currently featured in

Unleashed Unbounded Unforgiving Exhibition
Curated by Mel Clemmons and Liss Lafleur with New Art City

DIGITAL POWER Exhibition
Curated by Kathy Rae Huffman with the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community

How?

STEP 1
Thoughts about the definition of beauty are collected through an online form and twitter hashtags. These messages are archived in the official Gangnam Makeover Twitter account.

STEP 2
20 messages are selected from the archive every two weeks and displayed on top of cosmetic surgery advertisements in the Apgujeong and Sinsa subway stations through an augmented reality application.

*Advertisements at Apgujeong station, July 2018.*

Problem Space

The Apgujeong-Sinsa neighborhood in Gangnam district is the Mecca of plastic surgery, and is a place that shows the standard of beauty for women in South Korea. The moment you arrive in Apgujeong station, the many plastic surgery advertisements reflect this standard.

Big double-lided eyes, a high nose, a V-line chin, "water-gloss" skin, and 45kg. The standard is set. Many plastic surgery advertisements further brand words like 'complete', 'perfect', and 'confidence' and suggest that one needs to fulfill the set beauty standards to attain these traits.

Do women need to change, or spaces like this?

Through this intervention, women can share their thoughts on what beauty means to them. The collected texts will be overlaid on and substitute the homogeneous advertisements at Apgujeong station.

By using augmented reality as a tool to present alternate/preferred realities, the station will be transformed into a public gallery for discussion and empowerment.