GineersNow Engineering Magazine Issue 005

Would You Let a Robot
Do Your Make Up?
Girls, by now you may have
probably perfected your
everyday make-up routine from
washing your face, to putting on
foundation, eyeshadow, blush
and lipstick. After all, you’ve been
doing it everyday, over and over
again, until such a time you are
able to create a systematic way
of putting on make-up that you
don’t have to concentrate so
much when doing so anymore.
But what if you were offered the
option of letting someone or
something else take your place
in putting on your everyday make
up, let’s say—a robot? Would you
let it?
Two students from the University
of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria
wanted to experiment on the
idea. The two students are Maya
Pindeus and Johanna Pichlbauer.
They designed three robots that
can mimic three real human
make-up application motions,
which are swiping on lipstick,
putting on eyeshadow and using
a facemask.
The pair wanted to answer
the question: “If aesthetic
judgements are resigned to
robot intelligence, would it
make our lives emotionally less
complicated?”
Their answer: No.
After they set up the installation
with the robots, it proved that
the irregularities and uniqueness
in different people’s faces make
it simply impossible to perfectly
beautify the face of every person.
This experiment proved one
thing: that mindless robots can’t
beautify every woman the same
way, since every woman’s face
is unique and has its own way
of being beautiful. A make-up
style may look beautiful for one,
but may look bad on the other.
This experiment also opens the
issue of why are women trying
to achieve the same beauty
standards, when we all obviously
look different? So how about you,
would you like a robot to do your
make up?
Photos by Pindeus & Pichlbauer
54
JULY 2016
Future Cities & Robotics