This is a part of our 2020 documentary Dirty Art Hairdressing Visit our gallery or education to watch the full movie
Hair is an organic material that needs to be put to use. Today, hair is atavistic. There are many such vestigial structures in the human body: the appendix, tail and third eyelid are all examples. Another is hair. Long ago, when people were just beginning to stand upright, hair was necessary for survival. It preserved heat, cooled the body and absorbed the person’s smell. But nowadays, the human species has no need for hair. Hair is inconvenient, impractical and, more often than not, useless.
Today, hair is a social signifier; a person’s hairstyle can tell us a lot about them. Hair is a sign of identity, pride, style and wealth. Hair is a cultural symbol, an element of design and a work of art.
Why is it, then, that when hair falls off a person’s head it immediately becomes garbage? Every day, hair salons all over the world cut off and throw out tons and tons of this durable, decay-resistant biomaterial, one that heartily sucks up minerals from our bodies and money from our pockets that we spend looking after it. What can we do to give that hair a second life?
Africa, Egypt, India – several ancient civilizations gave us the idea of replacing and supplementing natural hair with artificial materials.
Clay, metals, wool and fur were widely used as luxury items and status symbols in earlier cultures.
However, everything changed in the 20th century. Humankind entered an era of functionalism, a time in which hair design began centering on minimalism and form; hair became shorter, volume decreased and the dominant principles in color were restraint and natural shades. Experimenting with cut and color, we cast aside the use of artificial materials. A new era began – the era of cosmetics. The hair industry turned into a global market of things that can be smeared onto hair; hundreds of manufacturer brands turned hair salons worldwide into display counters for the sale of their creams. Brands bought the most talented stylists, making them their loyal soldiers and salespeople. And thus creativity was lost. After all, we don’t need any additional tools or materials to put shampoo in our hair!
But the time for creative ideas is once again upon us! It’s DIY editorial; the era of selfies and vainglory, the endless stream of well-made but identical photos that fleet past our eyes online, has forced to look for a way to catch our audience’s attention and find new image solutions.
Creativity is a symbol of success for people today. Paired with technology, it can remove any barriers to what we can achieve. Technology allows us to find and combine any elements of any era or culture!
Photoshop, montage, 3D modeling and augmented reality give us the chance to create visual concepts that don’t exist in the real world, making hair stylists GENUINE mixed media artists creating a new virtual fashion.
Hair no longer has to be just on a person’s head – it can become part of the space around them. Moreover, hair can be completely replaced or supplemented with any material, including digital projection, holograms or virtual emptiness.
We are witnessing the arrival of a new profession: DIGITAL HAIRDRESSER
These are the people creating the images and videos that are filling the digital space! Look around – each of us has posted a photo or video of our work onto social media, and every one of us has used graphics editing software. We have all played a part in creating and disseminating the new fashion. Digital brothers and sisters, welcome to a glorious new era!
