Description:
Context: In recent years, a new type of influencer has been gaining ground: the virtual influencer. Sleek and handsome, these avatars created from scratch each have a story to tell, sharing their tastes, passions and vision with their community through a transmedia narrative. Like real, physical influencers, these digital beings promote brands and products to their subscribers. And since they’re also available at all times, who better to thrive in the new expanding virtual market than them?
Synopsis: EMI is the optimal performance tool. Her sublime productivity is seemingly unbound by basic human needs. EMI is a virtual influencer. EMI eats, EMI secretes, EMI generates.
The project: Embodying the concept of beauty and perfection, EMI is an adored virtual influencer until the day doubt creeps in. What if the trend was to look less and less like a human being? CGI, AI image generators, a program created to automate video processing, but also traditional techniques such as live shooting or FX make-up, EMI explores different methods in an atmosphere of viral vlogs and colorful selfies. EMI is a hybrid project that includes a short film and a web page with NFTs.
The emi.nevergone.cloud webpage is an outgrowth of the EMI film, extending the narrative into another space and time. People can own a part of the influencer’s physical body, thereby becoming the guardian of one of her organs. Each organ comes with a short description that follows the codes of an autopsy. The NFT edition fully embraces the consumerist codes of influencers. Behind its seductive form, the EMI project explores the increasing capitalization of the body, online, inviting us somewhere on the edge of the beautiful and the repulsive, the real and the fictitious, the living and the dead.
Production: Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains with the support of DRAC and Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (Fond SCAN)
