Internet Cultures and Human Betterment: A Conversation with Iris Luz

March 20th, 2023

Human monsters with coloured eyes and body extensions, cute animals, kitsch sparkles, or digital technologies…. That’s what fills image-maker Iris Luz’s visual world. Half-French half-Portuguese, but raised in London, Iris creates one of the most disturbing yet intriguing scenes, drawing from internet fringes’ aesthetic. Fully self-taught, she worked as a journalist, a social media editor, and a presenter, before focusing her career on visual language.

Today, she just finished editing a campaign shot for the French fashion brand La Maskarade, she’s getting into the practical approach of movie making— one of her lifetime dreams—, released a TikTok series made for Miu Miu’s Christmas campaign, and shot King Kong magazine’s 14th issue cover. On the side, she also keeps on doing social media and fashion consultancy and has almost finished a photography book on what human betterment means.

*Vore, Have a Great Day Magazine, Issue 5, 2022*

Anna Prudhomme: Hi Iris, could you begin by telling us when you first got interested in image making?

Iris Luz: I grew up an only child and I got used to doing lots of things alone. I had little cameras and would shoot myself before editing and animating the pictures on Blingee. At the time, I posted those on random social media websites such as Bebo or Skyrock.

After that, the main thing that animated me growing up was going to conventions such as Comic Con, vape, or Japanese culture happenings. Later, I also made a magazine named PC erotic exploring the intersection between tech and sexuality. I only made one issue because publishing is a very thankless industry as you do not get much out of it…but I got the opportunity offered by Ditto publishing— who is now the Art and Creative Director at Dazed Beauty— and I truly believe that when you're young, it's good to learn about yourself and take on whatever someone gives you.

But it was truly when covid hit that I made image-making my focus. At the time, I was a journalist, and couldn't really write about anything anymore. So I just started taking pictures of myself again and editing those in ways that would reflect how the internet had become such motivational and inspirational material. Then I just kind of continued scaling that up and evolving from there!

*Rex, Vaping Zine, “Weapon of choice”, 2019*

Anna Prudhomme: You do have a beautiful body of work on conventions’ people, could you talk me through that project?

Iris Luz: So, I really liked going to weird cultural events such as Furry Con but also dog competitions, or rather dog costume competitions (she laughs)… like anything where I could meet people who were completely different to me and whom I couldn't meet otherwise. I would go and engage with it, which made me learn about aspects of life in a completely unbiased kind of way. I started documenting these people, who by many others, were deemed weird. It felt very candid and sweet to be there with them.

Now video game culture has really taken over pop culture in general, and I feel like people who go to Cosplay Comic-Con are much more accepted and seen for what they are. But at the time, I felt really happy seeing into a world where people were blissfully content together, dressing up as their favourite characters. So capturing that just brought me joy. Simple!

“That lack of censorship [that] made lots of kids from my generation consume violent videos. So I think all of that came together in wanting to show, not so much gore or violence, but more literal depictions of pain, as means of maybe sharing the pain that I had been subjected to when I was younger going online.”

AP: How did the visual aspect of your work get so much imbued with the internet’s aesthetic? And in what way would you say that cyberspace influenced the meaning behind your photography practice?

IL: I’ve always had an interest in fringe cultures and figuring out how we interact online. And, as I said before, I was an only child, and because I was bullied a lot, I built on this foundation of knowledge about the internet’s marginal aspects, at a time when it was less censored and much less structured. One of the big recurring themes in my work is about how, when growing up, there was a lot of shock material online that wasn't ever moderated.

It would be commonplace to come back from school, and Facebook’s videos were on autoplay, so I’d see a horrific ISIS beheading or animal torture - just from random people reposting it and being like “this is so gross” but still sharing and kind of forcing someone else to watch… Well, not forcing them, but it’s that lack of censorship that made lots of kids from my generation consume violent videos. So I think all of that came together in wanting to show, not so much gore or violence, but more literal depictions of pain, as means of maybe sharing the pain that I had been subjected to when I was younger going online.

From a visual aspect, it also impacted my use of post-production effects. People try and figure out what's the most engaging templates or formats, with live references of interfaces such as TikTok, Facebook live stream, and Twitch. As well as famous YouTubers such as MrBeast, or David Dobrik, who keeps you very engaged and heightens your emotions. I believe we're all inflicted with a semi-ADHD epidemic, as we’re the product of current society's interfaces and videos. And I think my editing and post-production tries to emulate the constant itch of semi-ADHD symptoms.

AP: Are there any key figures you look to or cultural elements that inspire you?

IL: The first person that really influenced me was the American artist Charlie White. He really made me understand the idea of conveying a bigger meaning of life through imagery using different tools, such as prosthetics for instance.

Then I’d say the Austrian film director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Funny Games) whom I guess some people would call “quite harsh”. I also really like Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s work (The Square, Triangle of Sadness). And then British video artist Chris Cunningham, who did all of the Aphex Twin’s music videos (Windowlicker, Come to Daddy). I think a lot of people when asked about inspirations say curated and art-centric references and I do have those, but what really inspires me are rather innocuous ramblings organically found on the net.

Then I’d say, in my work, I like to reference parasocial tendencies of Japanese society, which I believe are present in all societies, but I think amplify when outside people look at Japanese culture - the way Westerners look at the Japanese relationship to sexuality for instance. I’m also quite inspired by how they're very extreme with obsessions. Not in a good or bad way, but in a very detailed one. So I like to pick those apart and look at the different ways they manifest themselves: in Manga, but also in porn; the way people interact with each other; or their relationship to work. I feel like it's an interesting mirror or window into an accelerated way of being - one that maybe one day the Western world will get to, or maybe not…I don’t know!

AP: From working with The Face magazine, Her or Paper to making French singer Simili Gum tour posters or shooting British band Sorry, you created a variety of visual universes but what’s the image you’re most proud of and why?

IL: I think it might be some very random picture that just happened to fully align with the feelings and ideas I had in my head while taking it. It’s not a specific shoot or brand collaboration but rather a symbiosis of feelings and ideas I wanted to convey. And I'm sure a lot of photographers can also attest to how fleeting and rare those pictures are.

She shows me an image of a tiny dog, with a pink collar, being grasped by a scary human hand painted in black with long and sharp nails. I really like this one, because it was super off the cuff. I loved capturing the energy of this very innocent young dog which happened to be on this other shoot. It was a between shots pic but aesthetically it conveys this idea of surrendering something inherently innocent, a live animal incapable of judgment, to a narcissistic and evil embodiment of humanity. In the moment, there wasn’t that much deepness but when looking back at it, I saw all those aspects that spoke to me.

*Dogs are Vessels, Have a Great Day Magazine, Issue 5, 2022*

AP: How did working in the magazine Dazed’s beauty section impact your photographic practice?

IL: Being a catalyst for other people's visions made me understand a lot about the relationship the viewers have with images online. It also made me realise the importance of creating something highly original - not only original to others but original to you.

At Dazed, I spent my time picking and piecing together other people's images and creating catalogues. Every day, I’d look at trends online, trying to detect aesthetic tendencies. I also saw how fleeting random images can be… I mean people spend so much time on an image for it not to stay in the viewer's mind, or age badly.

So it taught me that you shouldn't ever compromise on the meaning behind images, even if you want to make something very aesthetically imbued. You also have to be able to explain what compelled you to make that kind of image, because I don't think there's any permanence now with how accelerated we consume images that don't have cultural or conceptual importance!

AP: You said about your photography practice that it touches on complexities and nuances of being human, but could you develop on what that truly means?

IL: I’m very much interested in figuring out what betterment means from one human to another and I think this nuance can take a million different forms. The ones I like exploring most are plastic surgery or extreme health tendencies such as extreme biohacking (where people take a lot of supplements, eat raw meat, or do blood transfusions).

I like investigating the idea of aesthetic betterment because a lot of people say (and I don't personally agree) that if you have the economic capital to access plastic surgery it would help the ascension in societal paradigms. I find it interesting how people label aesthetic betterment as just as good as health betterment, and how having a big nose can be dubbed a health concern that should be fixed.

For a little while now, I’ve been working on a book project on that subject and all the complexities inherent to the idea of human betterment. I find it funny how what is supposed to be about health and wellness has evolved into a grotesque troll evolution of itself. Because now there are even people getting addicted to it. When we speak of plastic surgery for instance, it's kind of like when people say pig and pork, you’re not mentioning the whole part of the cutting and the bludgeoning of human bodies for aesthetic outcomes…. And that's deeply engrossing!

AP: Amazing, thanks so much for talking with me Iris!

Internet Cultures and Human Betterment: A Conversation with Iris Luz

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