Od estetyki do hiperestetyki: AI action figures jako komunikacyjny akt autoprezentacji cyfrowej

Julia Andruszko

doi:10.21697/kmt.2025.63.04

Published: 2025-09-30

Vol. 63 No. 3 (2025)

From aesthetics to hyperaesthetics: AI action figures as a communicative act of digital self-presentation

Julia Andruszko

Kultura Media Teologia

Section: Artykuły i rozprawy

https://doi.org/10.21697/kmt.2025.63.04

Abstract

This article offers an initial examination of the emerging AI action figures trend on Instagram as a form of digital self-presentation embedded in platform logics and feed aesthetics. It employs an exploratory qualitative synthesis that combines visual ethnography, digital ethnography, netnography, and the concept of the networked image. The analyzed visual objects are treated as phenomena characteristic of contemporary cultural texts and as a specific documentary record—a digital self-portrait. The empirical material comprises a case study of a post by Agata Koman alongside real-time observations at the trend’s peak (March–April 2025). The analysis shows that images generated via multimodal prompting facilitate replication, homogenize the message, and function as techno-memes propelled by platform technologies. The paper argues for a shift from aesthetics to hyperaesthetics: the self-image becomes an idealized simulacrum optimized for visibility, thereby deepening the commodification of the self. The author proposes personal feed vernacular as a provisional framework for describing a profile’s individual visual-narrative “dialect,” grounded in Instagram’s platform vernacular, and outlines theoretical avenues for further research.

Keywords:

AI action figures, Instagram, hyperaesthetics, digital self-presentation, platform vernacular, personal feed vernacular, networked image, techno-memes, visual culture

Download files

pdf (Język Polski)

Citation rules

Andruszko, Julia. “From Aesthetics to Hyperaesthetics: AI Action Figures As a Communicative Act of Digital Self-Presentation”. Kultura Media Teologia, vol. 63, no. 3, Sept. 2025, pp. 62-84, doi:10.21697/kmt.2025.63.04.

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Arielli, E., & Manovich, L. (2022). AI-aesthetics and the anthropocentric myth of creativity. NODES Journal of Art and Neuroscience, (19–20), 91–97. Numero Cromatico Editore.
Google Scholar

Arielli, E., & Manovich, L. (Red.). (2024). Artificial Aesthetics: Generative AI, Art and Visual Media. https:// manovich.net/index.php/projects/artificial-aesthetics
Google Scholar

Beyes, T., Leeker, M., & Schipper, I. (2017). Performativity, performance studies and digital cultures. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839433553-001
Google Scholar

W T. Beyes, M. Leeker, & I. Schipper (Red.), Performing the Digital: Performativity and Performance Studies in Digital Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan.
Google Scholar

Blackmore, S. (1999). The Meme Machine. Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Brighenti, A.M. (2010). Visibility in social theory and social research. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230282056
Google Scholar

Boccioni, U., Carrà, C., Russolo, L., Balla, G., & Severini, G. (1910). Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto.
Google Scholar

W U. Apollonio (red.), Futurist Manifestos (s. 27–30). Thames & Hudson. Bucher, T. (2018). If…Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics. Oxford University Press Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Dewdney, A., & Sluis, K. (Red.). (2022). The Networked Image in Post-Digital Culture (1st ed.). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003095019-1
Google Scholar

Georges, F. (2009). Self-representation and digital identity: A semiotic and quali-quantitative approach to the cultural empowerment of the Web 2.0. Réseaux, 2009(2), 165–193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/res.154.0165
Google Scholar

Gibbs, M., Messe, J., Arnold, M., Nansen, B. & Carter, M. (2015). #Funeral and Instagram:
Google Scholar

Death, Social Media, and Platform Vernacular. Information, Communication & Society, 18.
Google Scholar

10.1080/1369118X.2014.987152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.987152
Google Scholar

Gillespie, T. (2014). The relevance of algorithms. W T. Gillespie, P. Boczkowski, & K. Foot (Red.), Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society (s. 167–194). MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.003.0009
Google Scholar

Ginsburg, F. (2017). Indigenous media: From U-Matic to YouTube: Media sovereignty in the digital age. W Cultural Anthropology, 32(4), 585–596.
Google Scholar

Grasseni, C. (2022). More than visual: The apprenticeship of skilled visions. Cadernos de Arte e Antropologia, 11(3), 89–106. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857455666
Google Scholar

Hosseini, S.H., & Masdari, F. (2021). The aesthetics of Instagram: Exploring the aesthetics of visual and semantic aspects of Instagram. Journal of Cyberspace Studies, 5(1), 59–78.
Google Scholar

Highfield, T., & Leaver, T. (2016). Instagrammatics and digital methods: Studying visual social media, from selfies and GIFs to memes and emoji. Communication Research and Practice, 2(1), 47–62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2016.1155332
Google Scholar

Helman A. & Ostaszewski J. (Red.) (2007) Historia myśli filmowej. Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz/terytoria.
Google Scholar

Kocak, A., Kaja, I., & Erol, B. (2013). Social Media from a Perspective of a Diffusion of Innovation Approach. Procedia–Social and Behavioral Sciences, 99, 1194–1200.
Google Scholar

Kozharinova, M., & Manovich, L. (2024). Instagram as a narrative platform. First Monday, 29(3). https:// doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i3.12497 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i3.12497
Google Scholar

Kozinets, R.V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage Publications.
Google Scholar

Kozinets, R.V. (2022). How to Conduct Netnography: Using an Immersion Journal. SAGE Publications, Ltd. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529607963
Google Scholar

Kreft, J. (2025). DZIENNIK(AI)RSTWO. Jak sztuczna inteligencja zmienia najciekawszą profesję na świecie. Universitas.
Google Scholar

Laba, N. (2024). Engine for the imagination? Visual generative media and the issue of representation. Media, Culture & Society, 46(8), 1599–1620. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437241259950
Google Scholar

Liu, V. & Chilton, L. (2021). Design Guidelines for Prompt Engineering Text-to-Image Generative Models. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501825
Google Scholar

10.48550/arXiv.2109.06977.
Google Scholar

Manovich, L. (2017). Instagram and Contemporary Image. https://manovich.net/index.php/projects/ instagram-and-contemporary-image
Google Scholar

Manovich, L. (2019). AI Aesthetics. Strelka Press. https://manovich.net/index.php/projects/ai-aesthetics DOI: https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479817474.003.0005
Google Scholar

Manovich, L. (2023). AI Image Media through the Lens of Art and Media History. IMAGE. Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft, 19(1), 34–41. https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/22323
Google Scholar

Manovich, L. (2024). Unreliable Memories. W J.A. Ferreira, M. do C. Ramos, & M. Guimarães (Red.), Unreliable Memories: Lev Manovich (s. 7–32). Fundação Eugénio de Almeida. https://manovich.net/ index.php/projects/unreliable-memories
Google Scholar

Mateus, S. (2017). Visibility as a key concept in Communication and Media Studies. Estudos em Comunicação, (25), 109–124. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20287/ec.n25.v2.a08
Google Scholar

Meyer, R. (2023). The New Value of the Archive: AI Image Generation and the Visual Economy of ‘Style’. IMAGE. Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft, 19(1), 100–111.
Google Scholar

Pink, S. (2009). Etnografia wizualna. Obrazy, media i przedstawienie w badaniach. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Google Scholar

Pink, S. (2011). Multimodality, multisensoriality and ethnographic knowing: Social semiotics and the phenomenology of perception. Qualitative Research, 11(3), 261–276. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794111399835
Google Scholar

Pink, S. (2021). Doing Visual Ethnography (4th ed.). Sage Publications.
Google Scholar

Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2015). Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice. SAGE Publications.
Google Scholar

Postill, J., & Pink, S. (2012). Social media ethnography: The digital researcher in a messy web. W J. Postill, The digital researcher: A messy web (s. 127–146). The University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X1214500114
Google Scholar

Preston, L. (2024). The Role of Instagram in Performativity of Post-Digital Authorship in the Comics and Art Publicity Community. Journal of Digital Creativity, 35(1), 55–72.
Google Scholar

Rapp, A., Di Lodovico, C., Torrielli, F., & Di Caro, L. (2025). How do people experience the images created by generative artificial intelligence? An exploration of people’s perceptions, appraisals, and emotions related to a Gen-AI text-to-image model and its creations. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 193, 103375. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103375
Google Scholar

Rhomari, D., & Mifdal, M. (2025). Female Influencers’ Self-presentation and Digital Leadership in Morocco: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach to their Posted Content on Instagram. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 8., 44–52. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32996/ijllt.2025.6.4.8
Google Scholar

Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity. W M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Red.), Global Modernities (s. 25–44). SAGE Publications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446250563.n2
Google Scholar

Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.
Google Scholar

Rose, G. (2022). Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. SAGE Publications.
Google Scholar

Rouch, J. (1974) The Camera and Man, Studies in Anthropology of Visual Communication,vol 1, No 1, s. 43–44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/var.1974.1.1.37
Google Scholar

Ruby, J. (1996). Visual Anthropology. W D. Levinson & M. Ember (Red.), Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology (Vol. 4, s. 1345–1351). Henry Holt and Company.
Google Scholar

Ruby, J. (2004) [2000] Mówić do, mówić o, mówić z, mówić przy., Kwartalnik Filmowy, Nr 47–48, s. 20–44 DOI: https://doi.org/10.36744/kf.3437
Google Scholar

Rubinstein, D., & Sluis, K. (2008). A life more photographic: Mapping the networked image. Photographies, 1(1), 9–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17540760701785842
Google Scholar

Schreiber, M. (2017). Audience, Aesthetics and Affordance: Analysing Practices of Visual Communication on Social Media. Journal of Visual Communication, 19(2), 134–150. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2017-0209
Google Scholar

Setyawan, A. & Pawito, & Purwasito, A. (2024). How Significant is Instagram in Shaping Personal Branding? Literature Review. Formosa Journal of Social Sciences (FJSS). 3., 639–654. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55927/fjss.v3i3.10622
Google Scholar

Shifman, L. (2013). Memes in Digital Culture. MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9429.001.0001
Google Scholar

Sikora S. (1999). Nowe Przestrzenie antropologii wizualnej. Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa, t.53, z. 3, 68–70.
Google Scholar

Sikora S. (2004). Film antropologiczne – antropologia filmu. Kwartalnik Filmowy, Nr 47–48, s. 5–7 Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. Simon and Schuster. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36744/kf.3606
Google Scholar

Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. Penguin Press.
Google Scholar

Wang, Z., Huang, Y., Song, D., Ma, L., & Zhang, T. (2024). PromptCharm: Text-to-Image Generation through Multi-modal Prompting and Refinement. W Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (s. 1–13). Association for Computing Machinery. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642803
Google Scholar

Yau, J.C., & Reich, S.M. (2019). A meta-analysis of authentic self-presentation on social media. Journal of Media Psychology, 31(3), 118–132.
Google Scholar

Yao, Y. (2019). Feed aesthetics: The vernacular of Instagram. Journal of Visual Culture, 18(3), 389–408.
Google Scholar

Zappavigna, M., & Ross, A.S. (2022). Instagram and intermodal configurations of value Ideology, aesthetics, and attitudinal stance in #avotoast posts. Internet Pragmatics, 5(1), 197–226. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00068.rap
Google Scholar

Yao, Y., & Pearce, W. (2025). The visual vernacular of climate change on instagram: how modal convergence between image and text is changing the representation of climate solutions. International Journal of Communication, 19, 2221–2246.
Google Scholar

Julia Andruszko

D-4203@uksw.edu.pl
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2756-0521

Affiliation:

Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw Poland

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

Julia Andruszko – doktorantka w dyscyplinie nauki o komunikacji społecznej i mediach na UKSW w Warszawie. Z wykształcenia antropolog kultury o specjalizacji antropologia wizualna (UAM, UMK). Jej główne obszary badawcze to kultura wizualna i kultura cyfrowa. Obecnie bada głównie nowe cyfrowe formy komunikacji wizualnej platformy Instagram. Posiada doświadczenie jako praktyk komunikacji wizualnej oraz specjalistka ds. komunikacji i budowy marki.