Lucas Albuquerque: In “@ilusão” (@illusion), chains of words that refer to the digital world and computer programs appear repeatedly from the beginning to the end of the video. Click, slide, drag, open, close, block, unblock, watch, read, routine, connection, programming, user. A closer look reveals other words subtly inserted into these chains and disconnected from the pattern: urinate, laugh, suffer, yawn, pretend. Where does this desire for interference come from and why is this action necessary in the work?
Vitória Cribb: During the film’s development process, I wrote a text titled “For my friend algorithm” for the second edition of the independent publication O Turvo, in which part of the text was a letter addressed to my friend algorithm, “the one who understands me so well,” to the point of, based on my online behavior, indicating content that I should supposedly follow and consume. The text submitted for the publication is the same one used under the guise of costumes and scenographic elements in the film @ilusão. In writing this letter, which later became a textual interference of technological behaviors on the digital imagetic representation of a human being immersed in an online reality, in the film @ilusão I sought to visually explain how technological behavior permeates our pure interaction with the screen, but also becomes increasingly present in this symbiosis between technology and human beings. This symbiosis is directly reflected in our natural behavior, leading to an ever-stronger insertion of cell phone use in our banal habits and casual behaviors, the urgency caused by daily notifications in the morning, the use of the cell phone in the bathroom (urinate), the use of social networks as a refuge from syndromes like insomnia (yawn), the use of social networks and instant image capture to interpret characters of ourselves to present to others on the network (pretend).
In short: the textual interference on the main character, who resembles a human figure, with words of technological behavioral command—such as the words click, slide, drag, and open—referring to our acts before the screen of a cell phone, computer, or other technological device that connects us in a network, arises as a way to make the present symbiosis between technology and human beings more evident. As the film @ilusão permeates narratives and sensations that arise due to the encounter between human x online network and the increasingly intense use of online communication platforms, I sought ways to connect the human figure inserted in a digital context precisely with the technology that surrounds it, during the creation process of the film @ilusão. I note that none of the terms were used with a moralistic intent or undertone, but rather as a reflection, within an increasingly connected social context that we are part of and that affects me subjectively.
LA: The duality between immateriality and materiality can be perceived in the work when, on the verge of suffocating in a sea of words, the voice confesses that it intends to do “a virtual detox,” while a mini-screen reveals a hand that touches, rolls, and stretches a pink mass. Later, the avatar of the Black female figure who stars in the work has her face molded and disfigured by the chains of words that surround it in an infinite loop. How can one detox virtually when computer algorithms that learn about their users from the users themselves, conditioning their bodies and their desires, become increasingly intelligent? Who or what is the voice talking to?
VC: In the video @ilusão, I do not propose to answer or give any direct solution to the digital network construction that presents itself in contemporary times, but rather to start from a subjective reflection on a present, current, and historical event which is the increase of online communication.
The videos of the hand stretching and working the pink mass represent a certain type of content widely disseminated on social networks, which are slime videos, serving both for fun and for relaxation or curiosity. So, more than a proposition, the excerpt “virtual detox” reinforces the present duality between the need to communicate collectively through the internet. The exhaustion arising from this behavior also presents itself as a way of ironizing the impossibility of doing a virtual detox in a social context where interpersonal relationships are automated and connected via a digital network.
The voice present in the video is in dialogue with the receiver of the message (here, it could be the other or the machine itself that is inserted as an intermediary of this “unilateral dialogue”). The unilateral and informal communication sets the tone for the video’s narrative, which seeks to emphasize precisely the impersonality and communication noises that exist in daily online interaction when we try to connect with the other.
LA: Two mini-screens open on the main screen seem to refer to and want to comment on the work’s own creation process. How did this process happen and what is the importance of metalanguage in your work?
VC: The creation process of this work took place during the online residency of the independent space Olhão (SP), in the first week of July 2020. The creation/production process of the work could be explained in the stories of the Instagram platform during the week of immersion, from which I chose to expose my research and relationships between the themes addressed in Olhão’s stories.
While producing the visual part of the film @ilusão, I understood that bringing this research process and the explanation of the process that occurred in the online environment of Olhão’s social network into the video itself made sense, since the film’s narrative is a reflection of the digital space. The insertion of “screens within the video screen” acts precisely as a procedural metalanguage, highlighting the format in which my research was designed and developed within the work itself, reinforcing the idea of digital and online immersion with the representation of screens submerged in a violet ocean, as if all the information from the development process were immersed in this vast digital ocean that surrounds us.
LA: The avatar’s face in “@ilusão” repeatedly goes from serenity to astonishment and anger. The video ends with the image of this face frozen in a scream that seems to never end, followed then by the phrase “in memory of those who could not press shuffle and had their lives taken by the deadly repetition.” In what way can this avatar be understood as a place of representation for these individuals? Can “@ilusão” be considered a self-portrait?
VC: I don’t believe that the ethnic characterization of the character is a prominent point in the work. This ethnic characterization of the character goes beyond the issue of violence and is inserted mainly in the contrasting relationship that a Black body carries when inserted in a context of “new communication and visualization technologies.”
Furthermore, the work directly addresses algorithmic repetition in the online and digital space, but also the deadly repetition that affects Black bodies daily in our country due to present social and structural issues arising from a colonial history. The expressions carried by the character mainly represent the mental confusion resulting from this massive interaction in such an unstable and vulnerable period of society.
I do not consider the work a direct self-portrait, as I do not seek to genuinely represent myself in terms of anatomical and visual representation. But, without a doubt, @ilusão is a portrait of my subjectivity and a snapshot of my reflections on my personal, artistic, and also professional trajectory in technology in a context of growing massive online communication.
LA: How do you see “@ilusão” within your artistic production?
VC: The core of my artistic production starts from the exploration of more recent non-traditional and digital techniques, also known as new media, with a focus on visualization and conceptualization based on three-dimensional (3D) digital graphics, a recurring technique in my authorial works.
I see the work as a direct reflection of the technological present that is massively inserted in global contemporaneity and of the relationship between humans x connection x internet x communication technology. I believe there is an almost direct connection with my film Prompt de Comando (Command Prompt), 2019 – where I relate my existence as a Black woman with the existence of a robot that is there to serve human wills. The film @ilusão also starts from this reflection between my existence and the similarities with digital and online functioning and how my subjectivity is affected by this current movement.
Specifically in the work @ilusão, I start from the premise concerning the constant repetition of content on digital platforms and I relate this event to the repetition of violence against Black bodies in the West. Hence the excerpt at the end of the video “In memory of those who could not press shuffle and had their lives taken by the deadly repetition.”
LA: How does your work open up possibilities for the imagination of other realities?
VC: I believe that my work allows for an extension of individual and collective reality itself. By bringing surreal visualities that border on realism, but distance themselves from real representation due to the digital/technological element, I believe that my propositions allow for another look at the same current reality, potentiating movements already underway, in this case the insertion of visual and communication technology in our lives.
In relation to the film @ilusão, those who identify with violent repetition in a prejudiced society can project their reality onto the work, just as those who suffer daily interference from only digital content can project their reality onto the two repetitions addressed in the work.
For me, the work allows for an immersion in a feeling not yet defined by us, a feeling present in the relationship with the machine.
[Interview produced in the context of the Futuração exhibition, between March and April 2021]
