Features of Digital Visual Culture in Modern Mobile Applications

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of digital visual culture through the prism of the problems of the production of user content by means of specialised applications for mobile phones. Research methodology. The method of theoretical research, logical-analytical, subject-analytical, system-structural and typological method, as well as cultural and comparative method, was applied, which contributed to the identification of the main trends of digital visual culture. Scientific novelty. The phenomenon of digital visual culture is studied through the prism of the specifics of mobile applications; the problem of interpretation of a visual act in the context of the theory of digital culture is considered; analysed the features of using special effects in modern mobile applications (for example, Snow, Prequel, AirBrush and FaceApp). Conclusions. Mobile applications are based on the features of digital devices (mobility, tactile, multimodal interaction, mediated perception of the world in its dynamics thanks to the built-in front and rear cameras), which radically changed visual culture. At the modern stage, smartphones with touch screens and the ability to install various mobile applications, as one of the digital media, have created a new process of image production and distribution, as well as a new aesthetic sphere open to users. Art applications change the traditional relationship between the production of a work, the viewer and visual culture, providing the user/artist with a collection of stylistic sets. Accordingly, the process of artistic creativity is transformed into the process of choosing one of the proposed options, which is equivalent to the degradation of the aesthetic to the level of entertainment. Mobile apps for editing visual content facilitate representation through simulacra, whereby users define cultural relationships and behaviours in digital environments using non-realistic images. The most common applications at the current stage (Snow, Prequel, AirBrush and FaceApp), thanks to the use of innovative technologies of augmented reality and artificial intelligence, provide the opportunity for unlimited transformation of the ascending image (from retouching and applying beauty filters, to changing plasticity, age, gender, emotions or background).