Beauty standards have always been an impossible pursuit. From traditional cosmetic practices such as makeup to beauty-scoring algorithms, these standards have consistently worked to these ideals seem attainable while keeping them perpetually out of reach. The beauty industry has spent decades selling the same promise: that perfection is just within reach, while constantly moving the finish line. The lipstick serves as an entry point into a broader system of power through which ideals of femininity, racialized standards of beauty, and modes of bodily optimization are produced, circulated and normalized.

This prototype proposal is focused on an experimental device composed of a fleet of small robotic vehicles equipped with makeup equipment as well as recognition and navigation systems. These vehicles, which the authors named “The Glam Bots,” are trained on visual archives drawn from makeup tutorials, makeup guides, and social media content. In this way, they will learn to identify and reproduce gestures and techniques of the well-known “beauty mask.” During the laboratory, they will be tested as experimental agents that reproduce, execute, and potentially question the expectations embedded in beauty standards.  

Just a Lipstick aims to make visible the mechanisms through which certain models of beauty are presented as individual choices or natural truths, when in reality they are the result of processes of learning, repetition, and transmission sustained by visual archives, digital platforms, and cultural and technological industries of power. 

Team 

This prototype is developed by a team formed by the authors of the original proposal María Lara @marialarasolutions / marialarasolutions.com and Teresa Díez teresadiez.com / @teressque  together with:

Valentina Giniger valentinaginiger.cargo.site / @valen.giniger 

Barbara Miranda @barbaraa_uriee 

Claudia Mouton @c1.ou.d