s3lf.tech

s3lf.tech, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion

Anime | Artificial Intelligence

The s3lf.tech exhibition explores the construction of self-images within an environment inspired by VTubing (a streaming practice in which users represent themselves via an avatar controlled in real time), fan fiction, customisation cultures and virtual communities.

Through video installations, objects and web extensions, visually inspired by Japanese anime and manga, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion reveal how collective imaginations and new forms of digital sociability are shaped.

At the heart of the exhibition is Grim3s, an avatar loosely inspired by the world of pop star Grimes. This figure crystallises several contradictions linked to digital technologies: the promise of empowerment, the fantasy of a technology-driven utopia, the commodification of privacy, and often murky ideological shifts. The works on display utilise elf.tech, an artificial intelligence tool capable of transforming any voice into that of the singer. Through this installation, s3lf.tech highlights the proliferation of online presence in spaces saturated with content.

Through avatars, effigies and virtual idols, the duo questions our relationship with digital identities: to what extent do we identify with an image? Do we inhabit a character? Are we attached to a virtual presence?

Curated by: Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion and 40mcube

Production: Ambivalences – an interregional programme for artistic creation in digital environments led by Electroni[k], Oblique/s, Station Mir, and Stereolux, 40mcube, Zoo Galerie, the CNC’s Fund for Immersive Creation, La Fondation des Artistes, and the Villa Kujoyama post-residency programme, with the support of the Institut français du Japon and the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation.