This conversation highlights something i have been thinking a lot about recently, the fact that there are people as well as institutions that are forward thinking and using their creative powers to improvise, adapt and eventually overcome challenges and in the process shaping a new way of the perception of the world, while others remain stuck in the paths they are used to and soon become irrelevant.

Seeing which way you are heading it is evident that you are able to grasp the current Zeitgeist and translate it into an artistic form. While doing so, do you feel as a singular unit heading its own way at its own speed or are you part of an artistic movement, surrounded by people that inspire each other and share the same vision?

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This question took me a while to answer. I think it’s a very important question and difficult to answer for someone like me who is not a linear person.

 

I see myself as part of a movement by artists who deal with the non-binary conception of identity. At the same time, I'm personally very fluid between different areas of interest and movements. I am a very curious person and enjoy moving between a wide variety of communities and topics, both privately and professionally. To dedicate myself to a certain movement is not my thing. Of course, the opportunities for networking and community building are great and exciting and important in the digital reality we are living in to create visibility and importance for topics, but then I often lack the necessary energy to stay tuned. I need a lot of silence and time with myself, so I’d say that I rather stand outside of movement then being a first row activist.

 

Many of your works explore the possibility of digitally retouching the human face and body. These filters are basically digital make-up, what is the magic about adding one or more layers to your identity, potentially up to a point of total transformation?

 

I took my first selfie when I was 9. Already back then I was curious about the observing perspective on myself. My childhood was not staged for producing a lot of photographic memories so I had to get active myself. I often stole my mother's analog camera, an Olympus Mju 1, in order to capture a few self-images on the reel of film. These pictures were rarely great stagings but rather an inscription of myself in the pictorial space. My mother was very incomprehensible about this, she argued that it was a waste of the limited number of photographs on one film, space that could be rather used for meaningful shots like holiday sunsets or fun evenings with her friends, Moments that are more worth it to be captured in a picture. Of course, even over the years she has not understood what my intention to capture myself was and I could not yet name it myself. This was pre-internet era.

Now in 2021 I’m still obsessed with the observing gaze, though the technology and the world has changed a lot, as well as the role of the self image itself.

 

I love the comparison of deep AR face filter with the mirror of the evil stepmother in the fairy tale snow white: the black mirror shows us what we want to see rather than what our physical self looks like and thus will eventually change our identity and self awareness.

In my work I only use selfies from my private archive. My need for self-portrayal has of course changed since my childhood selfie discovery, now I am experimenting with the possibilities of an expanded self-portrayal that detaches itself from the surface of the face and becomes more of a mirror of expanded identity. Passing gender and digital pop culture I use face filters and face optimization apps on my selfies, which moreover standardized rather than underline our individuality, to create images of post-body identities.

I'm interested in the transformation of the face through the excessive use of these filters until the photo dissolves and becomes indefinable pulp. often the direct, staring gaze of the portrait then disappears, making it possible to linger and rest the viewers gaze on the portrait rather than consuming staged content. I a hyper exposed time I need this process of rediscover and retouch on order to inscribe my identity in a more honest way than the camera of a phone can capture.