The
movie star Sophia Loren may have been the icon of 20th-century
Italian beauty but times have changed and now she's being challenged
for her crown by virtual divas in the first "Miss Digital
World" competition.
A new beauty contest kicking off in Italy next week will give
pixel-perfect pin-ups the chance to steal sultry Sophia's sex-symbol
status.
"Miss Digital World" is the first beauty contest reserved
for the likes of videogame heroine Lara Croft, computer-cloned
actresses from the "Matrix" films and new beauties tweaked
to perfection with 3D graphics.
Digital artists, advertising agencies and videogame programmers
from around the world have been asked to send a computer design
of their perfect woman to www.missdigitalworld.com, complete with
date of birth and body measurements.
"Every age has its ideal of beauty, and every age produces
its visual incarnation of that ideal from the Venus de Milo in
ancient Greece to Marilyn Monroe in the 1960s," Franz Cerami,
the creator of the competition, said.
"Miss Digital World is the search for a contemporary ideal
of beauty, seen through virtual reality," he said.
Designers will program their contestants to parade along a virtual
catwalk, and there'll be a virtual presenter and virtual guests
who will help create the atmosphere of a beauty contest.
The winner will be crowned at a flesh-and-blood conference in
November 2004 and Cerami hopes the digital queen will go on to
greater things with roles in videogames, virtual reality films
and adverts.
But the virtual world has its ethical rules too.
"They should not have taken part -- not even as extras or
cameos -- in pornographic films, shows or plays nor have made
statements...in any way out of tune with the moral spirit of the
competition," organizers said.
(Agencies)