NFT: The Dawn of Our Tokenized World (Crypto Wonderland 2051)

castoreum, black pepper, corander, mountain air, lavender

Obligated to throw a pool party for neighbors but you forgot to add chlorine so no one can swim. Everyone is standing around, deteriorating under the prevailing overcast.

peppermint, orange, cedarwood, furikake, clove, coriander

Stand at the entryway. The air is thin outside, but go through the door and you will be engulfed in bliss and tradition. Like a kid in a candy store.

true animal, castoreum, musk

Every year, all worldly creatures gather in this convention hall for a day of essence competition.

amber, eucalyptus, oak moss, juniper, sage

A moss couch nestled under a willow. As night draws near, sink in and listen to the sounds of the Swamp come alive.

myrrh, frankincense, vetiver oil, castoreum, lemongrass, grapefruit, fern

A crystal palace hidden under the leaves. Insects of all colored patterns fly, scuttle, writhe, crawl and dart in to meet their collective queen.

fern, amber, mountain air, petitgrain oil, origanum, eucalyptus, oak moss

Wafting from the back garden adjacent to the outdoor seating. Food is served on smooth pieces of slate and the wait staff have a twinkle in their eyes.

frankincense, wormwood, vetiver oil, fern, cananga, peppermint

What Mark Watney would have hoped to create. Life thrives but not in ways we understand. Less about cultivation but more trying and failing to tame the wildness of Space.

coffee, cedarwood, buddhawood, tea tree, tarragon oil

Float through the neon void tingling all the way. Watch out for stray turtle shells that monotonously float past.

InTouch

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Ento-techno Futures is a series of AR filters that explore the concept of alien beauty. What does it mean to be beautiful while being alien and powerful? Combining the visual elements of insects and technological agents, and with no specific gender as targeted audience, these filters place their users not within the existing beauty norm, but somewhere new, somewhere outside. Not only are no facial features manipulated, but on top of that, shapes, colors, structures and interactive components uncommon to our daily beauty practices are generously applied to the user’s head.


Unlike other animals or plants, insects are conceived in our cultural imagination as alien and extraterrestrial, as their ways of perception and, in particular, their self-organization are extremely different from what humans have been able to conceive. Thus, the surface features of insects, which connote their perceptive and organizational capabilities outside of our common models, is also placed outside of our vocabulary for beauty. In addition, the futuristic look to Ento-techno Futures places the users in a different place in the timeline, to positively imagine a different future. 

The format of AR filters allow a broad audience base to interact with the art by seeing the art applied directly to one’s own face and head motion. Through this interactive exchange, the audience is encouraged to imagine themselves as an entity set outside of the normal beauty standards.


We can’t delete other people’s filters -- nor should individual creators be accused for their creations that contribute to a norm. It is the unbalanced representation of beauty standards on the global scale that is the issue. Ento-techno Futures contributes to the tearing down of singular beauty norms by precisely participating in the same platform as where those norms achieve their power: namely, social media filters.

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