Elizabeth Azoulay, anthropologist.

It is written on the avatar: tattoos with changing colors and patterns; a transparent skin graft based on jellyfish genes; a capsule that allows you to choose your skin color and texture for the day; the end of baldness; an exoskeleton that allows climbing Everest in less than twelve hours; the face of a pop star from in vitro cultured stem cells; a cloned double that serves as a reserve organ; thermochromatic cells that express emotions; bioelectrical control that increases the ability to…

Science fiction? Perhaps not, if we are to believe the fifth volume of the encyclopedic work 100,000 Years of Beauty, published by Gallimard with the participation of the L’Oréal group, edited by anthropologist Élisabeth Azoulay and Françoise Gaillard as patron scientist. In these 300 richly illustrated pages, many experts – scientists, philosophers, sociologists, writers, artists of all nationalities present their vision of beauty and body representation.

Transforming standards of beauty

“Since prehistory, the rules of beauty have continued to transform, but today the pace and evolution of technology has accelerated so much that we are faced with choices that we are far from measuring all the possibilities,” Elizabeth Azoulay immediately declares.
The questions are piling up. Would we still be human if we eliminated aging and death?

Will there still be an age when the body can be constantly repaired and replaced?On a planet of ten billion people, 70% of whom will live in megacities by 2050, how will standards of beauty evolve while nationalism is on the rise? live, and a significant part of our lives is moving to digital worlds, redefining the notions of borders and identity? From the seven main topics covered, the conductor of the book deciphers three essential topics that already affect us closely: gender, age and technology.

Singular plural

“The difference between men and women has always been at the heart of beauty standards and shaped our way of thinking,” says our guide, “but today we are faced with a rather complex situation where the most advanced ideas coexist with the more backward world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the boundaries of the binary have continued to dissolve, first with the liberation of women’s bodies, the control of contraceptives, the non-condemnation of homosexuality by law and doctors, and we have the impression that we will be part of a continuous movement. We thought we were inevitably moving towards gender fluidity, hand in hand with the great directive of modernity, that is, the expression of the individual; ” What philosopher Gilles Lipovecki describes as “a hypernarcissist who works tirelessly to improve his appearance.”

So some approach the future with the idea that the body is a kind of raw material from which we can redefine ourselves at will, without the dictates of nature or society.On the scale of a hundred years of life, we can change gender depending on the moments of our lives, without necessarily having surgery and change sex, predicts Elizabeth Azoulay. But this general equality, which we find in some science fiction novels like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, can only be achieved in the day when men can give birth.

However, we are not there at all. We are facing real medical challenges and the public is not at all interested in all these innovations. Just look at the failure of male contraception.By waiting for artificial wombs where children will grow without us, we are already avoiding pregnancy thanks to surrogate mothers, which causes other moral and social problems. And when we look at geopolitics, this vision of the future world is only part of it. Demographically and culturally, two-thirds of the world’s population does not share it at all. Therefore, the 21st century will be a difficult one, and we must prepare for it.”

Forever young

“In one century we have doubled life expectancy, and we are accustomed to reaping years on the grim reaper. Transhumanists only dream of reducing death, and all the technological giants work on longevity. This promise of immortality also reveals a great injustice on a global scale, as medical access becomes increasingly difficult and expensive. that in both medicine and cosmetic surgery the results are becoming more and more subtle is spread with a few drawbacks. As with medicines, we cannot endlessly multiply gestures without disturbing the harmony.

Some geriatrics students admit to being less shocked by a patchwork body that is young and old at the same time. Rejuvenation techniques have made real progress, but for the body, we are not there. posture and mobility.A more philosophical question arises. If three, four, even five generations coexist, if the great-grandmother resembles her granddaughter, how will the society be organized? How are we going to manage our love life, asset management, job and role swapping?When we talk about age, we only talk about appearance and psyche.

Are you advanced?

“People didn’t wait for surgery to develop skulls, to enlarge their necks, to reduce their legs, to deform their skeleton. But today, a revolution is happening. Man will soon control his evolution, continues Elizabeth Azoulay. We are already in the age of prosthetics. Lenses, implants, and cosmetic surgery are part of our daily lives, but the man of tomorrow will have multiple biometric devices, bionic organs, and nanorobots in his body to monitor his health… and not be immune to hackers. Our interventions will extend to the cell, the genome , on the neuron.This posthuman quest for beauty will no longer be limited to cosmetics, medicine and cosmetics with surgery. Implants and prostheses, functional and aesthetic, will be as much a part of seduction tools as decoration or body care today.”

Digital artist Christophe Luxero wonders if our prostheses can become our most beautiful jewelry. We will proudly display fake limbs signed by great fashion designers. “Cloned, spliced, we’ll be able to enjoy multiple bodies. We’ll be able to mass-produce perfect plastics on demand, which will pave the way for a freely agreed-upon eugenics. The question of aesthetic standards will arise more than ever. So what would it mean to be beautiful?” asks Elizabeth Azoulay.

Expansion of opportunities

“This world offers an expansion of possibilities, a huge choice, and, at the same time, we have lost our naivety,” he concludes. Today, we know that any progress has its negative side, and without giving up, we must develop enough robust thinking to account for side effects.In the book, neuroscientist Paolo Bartolomeo wonders if all these artifacts are compatible with our brain and its millennial evolution rationally reconcile nature and technology. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Study nature. That’s where your future is,” and L’Oréal’s general manager of advanced research, Anne Colonna, echoes “biomimicry.”

“It is a beauty that is no longer content to be inspired by living things, but to recreate their superpowers. Like self-healing and rewinding the film of our lives, the wisdom of nature combined with the power of biotechnology opens a new era in the history of beauty: the Idea.” is to recycle the skin or scalp cells instead of compensating and replenishing.Goodbye wrinkles and alopecia. Ultimately, this monitoring of living organisms will enable us to visualize the biological signs of aging and interrupt them even before clinical signs appear. Beauty procedures will be modified by new methods of application, such as microneedles or smart patches the infinite variety.” And that’s already tomorrow.

100,000 years of beautycollective work edited by Elizabeth Azula, Ed. Gallimard, 5 volumes in a box, 1456 pages, 125 euros. Supported by L’Oréal.