Johanna Jaskowska
Going viral is in 2019 not as easy as it seems anymore. You need to be outstanding with your concepts and storytelling to make your work go crazy online. Johanna Jaskowska succeeded in creating ideas using new technologies that are executed in a new way. Being one of the first artists, who could upload self-created filters on Instagram, made her community grow to over 830k followers on Instagram. Everyone wants to dip their face into her beauty AR filters.
Johanna, who are you, where are you from and what did you study to become the artist you are right now?
My name is Johanna Jaskowska, I’m half French half-Polish, raised in Paris’ suburbs. I lived and worked in Paris, Berlin and just recently moved to Portland, Oregon.In Paris (Estienne ESAIG) I studied visual communication, art, and design, focusing on multimedia and digital stuff. But to be very honest, I learn everything on the internet and in my life experiences. I’m very curious but I was often bored in class, I wasn’t learning the things I really wanted to.
How would you explain your job to an old person?
That’s so difficult! My family still doesn’t understand fully what my job is and neither do I. I’ve always been out of the box, touching all kinds of creative disciplines, but one sure thing is the digital world drives my curiosity more than everything else—it’s like an endless playground. It’s always new, always changing, and re-inventing itself. Also, it is a place where you can influence how the future would be—it’s not boring and very exciting. But to respond to your question I usually say it like this: I do creative concepts, but what I really like is using new technologies in different ways to create a new kind of storytelling and new ways to interact and communicate. I like to do things that haven’t been done before, I like to provoke and confuse.
Where came the idea from creating filters for Facebook and Instagram?
As a digital creative/creative technologist my work is mainly to develop strong concepts and story-tellings with tech but to sell ideas I have to put my hands on it to understand how it works.
So I basically brainstorm, research, I do a lot of prototypes and testing. This is more or less what happened with the AR filters on Instagram: From an idea using Augmented reality on social media, I did some researches, some prototypes, tested them at my scale. It was a very entertaining process because of the social aspect of it, in fact, the real people using them. So I did more, listened to my audience, learned from their behaviors and their feedbacks and at the same time developed my own language.
How did the Instagram cooperation of publishing your filters start? Was it tough?
Not tough at all, I was one of the first along other to be a part of the Instagram Beta for Spark AR (the tool developed by Facebook to make AR filters for Facebook and Instagram camera), we were few hundred at the beginning but I was the one that went viral first and it was not expected (that was actually the tough part). Obviously, it created a lot of awareness around Spark AR and the community has grown to 40K users. I am happy that so many people that aren’t into tech in the first place started to put their hands on tools like Spark AR, I see it as a first step for people to understand how technologies work. We live in a world surrounded by technologies and devices but most of us don’t understand it at all.
What is your favorite filter?
Beauty3000 is my favorite one, it’s the most fascinating piece I’ve made, it’s talking a lot about our society today through the perfect “plastic” idea, the new genre of beauty through my fascination for the future and the digitalization of the self. But I like the most is probably how it did confuse people so much, I love that.
During the last year, your popularity got unstoppable. You have now 823k Followers on Instagram. How did this happen?
I don’t know really, when something goes viral it is hard to explain, and you never really expect that to happen. Although I knew it was a good piece and I was very excited to share it.
I think it went viral because of several factors. Before January (when Beauty3000 was launched) filters were more funny/cute than weird and arty. Beauty is a big thing on Instagram and it was the first beauty-related camera effect that was not a “try it on make-up” filter. Transparent: On Instagram people want to story-tell themselves and stand-out, Beauty3000 is transparent enough to help the user to do so – the story isn’t about the filter, it is about the user using it.
Do you feel sometimes under pressure, that you must deliver something super fancy, super innovative to not disappoint your followers?
Always, but the pressure doesn’t come from followers. I always re-question myself and sometimes too much the result is many projects and experiments that I’ve never shared with the public. At the same time, it gives me a headache to overthink so I try to say to myself “F**k it, just do it and we’ll see later”, and it feels great and usually it ends up great. There is a sort of pressure from having a lot of followers, but I think it comes from the fact that I can be very shy sometimes.
At the same time, it is difficult to know all of my followers well because it is a lot. They are from all around the world, different cultures, backgrounds, generations, etc,. I learn a lot from them, but I can’t promise to not disappoint them, I just try to don’t disappoint myself first. Also, I don’t want the “followers” to influence my way of doing things, I just want to do my thing. I say it now but I went through a long and tough process on redefining this persona I’ve created “Johwska” which is just one part of myself.
What was for you the big bang that helped your career as an Artist?
I guess it was moving to Berlin, it was the first time I moved to live in another country without any “real job” kind of experience (not freelance). Just the process of getting out of my comfort zone is life-changing, I grew faster that way.
I had to build my portfolio and my website but I didn’t want to do another boring grid portfolio website. It was 4 years ago, the work is outdated now but it doesn’t matter because the website itself is an art experiment. It’s an underwater portfolio, you can navigate on the website like playing a 3D fps video-game but you can still scroll like a regular UX website. http://jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj.jjaskowska.com
“There is no filter without you” - this is the description that people can find in your Instagram profile. What does this mean for you?
It is not about the filter, it is about you using it. Without having users using the filter, the filter can’t travel around the world, it’s kind of like a thank you message “Without you guys, nobody has access to it”. (The more people use it the more people can have access to it). A way to say thank you.
We are living in a world, where we reveal more and more all our life on Social Media. How important do you think are facial filters/masks? Would you say through those filters people have the feeling they can hide themselves a bit?
I don’t think it is about hiding yourself but about showing yourself with confidence.Instagram is the place for stunning images, the app is designed for it, the most liked pictures are slick and sharp portraits pictures with amazing light. What I found so fascinating with AR filters, it’s like having a photo studio in your pocket. That’s actually how I started my approach with face filters at the beginning. It was all about playing with lights by highlighting the face, like in photography. By experimenting with the tool the process and the storytelling took different directions.
Is there any person that inspired you in what you are doing?
There are many, but I’m mostly inspired by how people are doing their own things.
You moved right now from Germany to the States, right? Do you take inspirations from the different cities/countries you live in?
For sure, the people that surround me always influence me, I don’t think it is related to the country but the cultures and subcultures.
Do you have some future projects, that you would like to share with us?
I started some conversation with a gallery to make an exhibition that exports my AR work from device screens to optical AR glasses like Hololens, it’s something that I always wanted to do, and here is my opportunity.It’s tricky these days, there are so many things I want to do and many things I’m trying to do.
Also having so much visibility can be very overwhelming, many emails, messages DMm people to meet and I’m very curious so it is hard to find the right balance with my personal life, I’m still trying to find it and on the other side I’m a workaholic, I can’t help it, I just accepted it.
courtesy JOHANNA JASKOWSKA
interview KATI WEISMANN
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