Lure (Smear Campaign)
2020

lure
/ˈlu̇r/

noun
a decoy for attracting animals to capture: such as artificial bait used for catching fish

verb
to draw with a hint of pleasure or gain : attract actively and strongly

Lure Campaign is a digital catalogue project—a series of collected images that coalesced out of my continued investigation into:

• the abstraction of objects in white backdrop product photography,

• the decontextualization of these images in digital space,

• the absurdist synchronicities that emerge out of algorithms that are coded with capitalistic bias,

• the narratives developed by product name nomenclature,

• and the themes that emerge when these are all considered through a feminist, post-consumerist lens.

Specifically, Lure (Smear Campaign) explores the aesthetic and conceptual relationship between fishing tackle and beauty products, a relationship suggested to me by Pinterest’s “More like this” section, which uses image recognition technology to recommend content based on similar, abstract signifiers: color, form, and composition. Powered by a flawed visual signal algorithm, Pinterest repeatedly recommends fishing lures to me in lieu of beauty products and, in doing so, highlights the uncanny visual similarities between fish bait, hair extensions, and cosmetics “swatch” photos.