Omega C.: The humanity that lies between virtuality and physicality
Interview by Ayae Takise
Translation by Sherry Zheng
It was not until recently that the creators behind Instagram (IG) filters have started to emerge as influencers themselves. Merely a year has passed since it became possible for anyone to create their own filters, starting from August 2019. In the blink of an eye, this function appeared and things like marketing tie-ups have become commonplace. From surficial 2D graphics to exciting textured 3D computer graphics (3DCG), and furthermore the incorporation of movement, there’s a lot out there. These are the “faces” of our augmented reality.
Adrian Steckeweh is a German based in Tokyo and behind Omega Centauri, one of the creators who have amassed a sizable following throughout the world. His visual creations, seemingly strange and inhuman, have been nurtured by his way of seeing the human body - inside and out. The moment you begin to perceive his worldview, you will start to see his creations differently too.
Provoking the purity of IG filters
Adrian has lived in Tokyo for five years now. While working for an architecture and interior design firm, after hours, he creates filters and 3DCG renderings. Despite being a passion project, the sheer pace at which he continually releases new filters is a wonder. But what is even more notable are the textures and movements in his filters and renderings; so precise they seem to exceed the limits of augmented reality. We owe this precision to his particular emphasis upon establishing a connection between the filter, the user’s body, and the surrounding environment and phenomena.
“The human body is a central part of my work. Not only do my filters have strong relations to the user’s body, but they reflect or distort his/her surrounding environment. I want to make the virtual features synchronize with the human body to bring it into a unique context only experienced when using the filter. If the connection between the virtual parts and reality is too far or barely there, it is easy to feel lost in the virtual world. I want to create different contexts while having coherency to it, provoking the purity of the filter and bring it to a point where people feel the spirit of it.”
“I love the human body. I recall enjoying nude sketching class at architecture school. Drawing a middle-aged plump figured lady, all the folds and texture of her skin and everything…it was just fascinating and worth gazing at, and I’m not talking of sexual attraction here. It was simply beautiful. This is ultimately what my filters aim for – to use what we already have, our beautiful bodies.”
In particular, Omega utilizes a lot of reflective and translucent phenomena — distorting real space and time in which the user exists. By enhancing the singular experience and emphasizing context, you can say that Omega has found her niche in a sea overflowing with filters that simply “stick on” elements.
“This connects to my architectural background. Working metaphorically and conceptually in context is a practice I learned from architecture. But architecture hits you with reality – the actual space, materials, and budget – at the end. This is why virtual creation means so much to me as another outlet to realize my ideas. Still, architectural thinking pulls me back to specific necessities when I get lost in the virtual world of infinite possibilities. At the end it is about humans. ‘Human-specific’ is what I might say.”
Combining natural phenomena and humans
Seeing his IG stories, it is obvious that Omega’s love for nature directly inspires her filters and hyper-realistic 3DCG creations – a variety of water waves, either the ocean or a pond flowing under sunlight, bugs swarming on a rock, trees swaying in the subtle wind.
Perhaps you would start to see this connection in how he adds the textures of natural phenomena to our human bodies, giving us a strong yet eerie look.
“It is true how the nature-inspired elements seem weird or scary once they are adapted to the human body. Simultaneously I love the connection they have with each other. Previously I received honest comments on Instagram that my filters are ‘disgusting but cannot resist watching’. I took this as a very positive reaction.”
Other than filters, Omega sometimes creates videos adapting 3DCG works and posts them on her Instagram. All images in courtesy of @omega.c
Transformation and masks: A life-long obsession
For Omega, creating filters is more than about just flaunting digital techniques. It is a manifestation of a personal obsession beginning back in his early childhood, with the act of transformation and masks.
“As early as I could remember, I was obsessed with masks and collected them. I loved how the object itself is a character with personalities you could imagine. One of my biggest influences may have been from the traditional festival of Elzach, a small German farmland village in the midst of Black Forest where my mother hails from. It is an area where indigenous belief is still alive among people, so every February the villagers transform into Schuttigs, wearing big wooden masks with demonic expressions, to scare away winter and welcome in spring. People change their behaviors, too. It is all about being grotesque. I was obviously intrigued in the part where people hide behind the character and act as a different personality.”
The Elzach mask festival (photo courtesy of Omega C.)
The virtual masks that Omega makes now evoke the same act of human transformation, but in a very different form to those from his childhood memories.
“My filters don’t hide the user’s face completely. By leaving the actual face parts shown, I believe it brings out something invisible – let’s just call it the ‘spirit of that person’.”
The beginning of Omega Centauri
Adrian’s creative pseudonym is taken from the Greek character for ‘the end’ and the globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus. This alter ego exists within Adrian “as a personal comfort space inside, which existed long before it even had a name”. It appears that the two personas, connected by the same body, do share some overlapping aspects.
Omega first came into existence as Adrian began drag during his university years, influenced by the television series RuPaul’s Drag Race. After dabbling in make-up and fashion as most drag queens commonly do, he found his drag career was short-lived.
“Aesthetic-wise, I wanted to look alien and inhuman, but maybe that was just an excuse not to be the typical drag you see in the media. Wearing long nails and sweating under full coverage foundation and wigs…Those things were such a discomfort it just took me out of my fantasy. Also, smudging make-up and the visible hairline of the wig are easily ‘clockable’, a drag term of revealing and criticizing flaws. I hated to tolerate those bad details – Having a background in architecture design, everything is about the quality of details! (laughs)
Me and other drag queens probably share something now and then. But back then, I realized it’s not about transforming in real life. I started to have my transformation done in the virtual world where everything is possible and made perfect.”
Early rendering demonstrations before Instagram officially distributed their filter systems
Hearing about how his filters derived from this cosmetic dilemma, it is interesting to see his most recent filter Rorschach, reminiscent of the homonymous psychological test. An infinitely shifting pattern of inkblot-like patterns over the face, it “gives a moment of uniqueness in times where everybody looks the same with smooth skin, big eyes and filled lips”. We might even call it an anti-cosmetic filter.
from https://www.instagram.com/p/CFBxgNeHTT_/
“I wanted to create a post-human approach, where the pattern becomes a virtual part of one’s identity. Upon creating this filter, I tended to constantly cover the most revealing part of your face, the eyes. It felt wrong to leave the eyes visible. Rather than emphasizing them, I conveyed anonymity. I think that is where anti-cosmetic perception comes in.”
The redefinition of “normal” and “diversity”
Omega’s curiosity is not only concerning the visual features of human beings. This is clear even in his recount of the Elzatch mask festival, in which his underlying desire to understand both the inside and outside of the human body is apparent.
“For example. I feel empathy toward political villains at some point. I believe that from their perspective their opinions and actions absolutely make sense. I would like to hear their honest explanation of what moves and scares them. I’ll never share their points, but understanding them is a good start.”
In this conversation, which took place around when the Black Lives Matter movement began to slow (at least from the perspective of those in Japan), Adrian continuously referred to the fear of physical individuality.
“I just wish one day all these gender and race discussions happening at the moment will strip away and the sense of “normal” would change…or even the idea of ‘diversity’ will vanish. We are naturally afraid of something different from one’s self. We have to learn that there is nothing to fear. If racism comes from education, we could and should learn the other way around. I hope that someday the world is so diverse, both normal and different lose their meanings.”
Expanding possibilities and acceptance of the unknown
During the COVID-19 lockdown, Omega used his personal drawings to create a ‘Humanoid Alien Generator’ on a layered avatar maker service called Picrew. This project, which layers different facial parts into one, echoes his hope for acceptance towards physical differences. It also puts forward the conclusion that no matter one’s race or personality, all people share a point of overlap somewhere.
Humanoid Generator by Omega.C. Try at Picrew
“I came to a point where I realized my 3DCG renderings became ‘the same thing in different colors’: That is why I started something new. [In Picrew] all the parts are intended to add something ‘not normal’. There are so many ear shapes, hairstyles and eye types…everything becomes a gradient. I love to see so many overlays of features to a point you cannot categorize someone. This is my exhibition of where diversity erases segregation. The inhuman avatars and filter-made visuals may be a way to grow acceptance of diversity in the physical world.”
Omega sees the current worldwide situation as a juncture for change; a shift to radically new values that may serve as the “standard” in the future.
“We are at an important time where acceptance is on its way to being protected by new laws and systems being made. LGBTQ influencers are playing a big role for this to happen. The more attention they earn from mainstream ‘normal’ people, it shifts the society and even the government. Still, the way LGBTQ culture expresses their identity is very much influenced by previously existing male or female concepts. In the upcoming phase, I guess there will be more uncategorizable, in-between people. Even now, I see new generation kids who are beyond description that you cannot even label them. I love that.”
Omega with his drawings
Omega’s life as a creator may be his key to finding his true self. For Adrian, who lives on Earth and is bound to a physical human body, Omega is the name which he refers to as his “final answer”. In the future, Adrian hopes to add a narrative and timeline to Omega, giving her a more tangible form.
“I want her to become a more real part of me, though I am already sharing her spirit with people through my work. That’s just happening along my journey towards Omega, my final destination.”
Omega Centauri / filter creator
Omega Centauri is experimenting in the space between reality and virtual reality. Connecting real footage with computer generated elements creates worlds existing in-between, where physics, materials and textures can be redefined.
Instagram: @omega.c