Project: The Digital Legacy of Eugenics
About the project
This project, led by researcher Lila Brustad, will explore the relationship between a pseudo-scientific method of photography developed by Eugenicists, and the statistics that determine what images users see on TikTok and Instagram. The project will be working towards a digital exhibition, as well as a programme of social media activism, engaging with archived composite portraiture in the Galton Laboratory Collection.
On TikTok and Instagram, algorithms and monitors are thought to look at people’s facial features to determine if the creator should have more or less reach. Instagram and TikTok create a space of homogenized faces, class status, race, and ability - just as Galton’s photos emphasized some features while others disappeared in a process that was meant to lead to a physical world homogenization similar to that happening in these apps.