Originally conceived as a photo-sharing app, Instagram has now became a platform to promote lifestyles and to create trends. In the art world, while galleries are becoming obsolete, the app is emerging as a powerful tool for artists to publicize and sell their works. In 2014, Argentinian artist Amalia Ulman even used it as a space for her performance Excellences & Perfections, gaining almost 90.000 followers. Thanks to its popularity and success, Instagram has become the perfect place to discover and understand the main trends of contemporary visual culture.
Since the very beginning, Instagram has made available to its users filters that imitate the style of past photographs. By increasing the exposure with a red tint, 1977 gives the image a rosy, brighter, faded look; Earlybird conveys an older feel with a sepia tint and warm temperature; Nashville lowers contrast and increases exposure to give a light pink tint, making the picture feel nostalgic; Toaster ages the image by burning the centre and adding a dramatic vignette; Slumber desaturates the photo, emphasizes the blacks and the blues and adds haze for a retro vibe; Reyes gives the image a dusty, vintage look. The result is often a low-resolution image or a ruined picture with washed-out colors that simulates a different temporality.
Postmodernists and postmodern culture tend to be especially fascinated with styles and fashions from the past; which they often use completely out of their original context. In pop culture, for istance, think of the endlessly recycled tv shows of the past that are then given new life on the big screen. The critics tend to read this tendency as a symptom of our loss of connection with historical temporality. The celebration of the past can also be related to the lack of an identity, a precise style that can define the spirit of our time. However, this philosophical and sociological problem has now become a mass phenomenon.
The crisis of modernity and the intolerance for global society certainly caused a feeling of nostalgia; but now it seems that the same mass society despised by postmodernists is embracing vintage aesthetic. Fashion, photography and music are all influenced by styles of the past; and Instagram shows us this trend. Looking at the pictures of famous insta-queens and kings, scrolling down the profiles of celebrities, we will always find a low-resolution image or a VHS-style video. Stars like Kim Kardashian West, Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Selena Gomez are all inspired by retro styles. By sharing pictures everyday, they contribute to the circulation of a postmodern aesthetic. Or we should say a contemporary aesthetic? Perhaps our age will be remembered as the time of nostalgia and of the reworking of the styles of the past. Anyway, one thing is certain: nowadays low-resolution is a trend and lossy images are fashionable.
