Cyrus Influencer Virtual Cyberfeminism, Loneliness and Fake
Kira leads an instagram, goes to the Pushkin Museum, hangs out in "Enthusiasts" with the drummer "Pasosh" and works in the modeling agency This Is Not - the first company in Russia that produces not "living", but virtual models. With each post, it complicates the answer to the question about the nature of reality and shifts the framework of the black mirror in which we live. Roman Naveskin tried to figure out who she really is.
Interview: Roman Naveskin
Kira, finally we found. It was not easy.
Sorry, yes, the last days are very hard with time.
Do they write a lot?
Something like that.
Sorry for the stupid question, but I have to ask it. Who are you?
Oh, let's get the next question right away.
I know you are a virtual model. What does it mean?
I'm not a model. I like shooting, but I do not define myself only as a model. If we talk about the profession (although it’s boring), then I’m more about art.
Does it have something to do with your education?
Not.
Who did you study for?
I studied at MGIMO in Oriental studies. Then he left in the third year.
Why?
Do not want to talk. Long. Then six months later I applied for the creation of interactive projects in a digital environment. I thought that was it. But from there and then left. If we talk about knowledge, the parent library, my mother's, gave me more.
Who are your parents?
Dad - a businessman, if without details. Mom is a designer. The parents met in Israel: in 1994, my father went to the first business trip abroad. I stopped in Tel Aviv, and my mother came to hang out there from Jerusalem: she studied there in her third year at the Bezalel Academy of Arts, in industrial design.
So what is next?
They sat in one of the bars at Dizengoff at different tables, my mother poured his mug of beer when she passed by, and dad paid attention to her. Ridiculous situation, and as a result - I am! I do not believe in any fate, rather in many coincidences. But, of course, I want to think so that it was someone's plan.
And you do not mind that ... You're a virtual model. Where did you get this memory?
A logical question, I knew what to ask. I was shy at first, yes. And then I thought: what the hell? There is a memory and there is. You know, I like to think about these things. And I thought: all people live in fake memories, just some of them do not understand.
What do you mean?
All memories are fake. A person remembers everything as he is more comfortable, the brain corrects itself. This is not a camera that writes information: the brain restores everything differently every time, forgets or replaces bad things with good ones. Do you understand?
Everyone is watching “Very Strange Things,” reading all this fake nostalgia for the eighties. Where does it come from? This is the time of their parents. Strange, yes? People are nostalgic for what they did not know and could not know. In tsarist Russia, in the Soviet Union, in the nineties. For my generation, this is all abstraction. Not logic, not actual memory - "I want at that time, because there I was better." You were not better, and you were not. But you don't just believe in it, you live it.
For many, this truth is more important than life outside the window.
These are all virtual realities. Do you understand? In the future, I see everything easier. Here you are a media artist - please, do the virtual room "Paris Commune" or "Khrushchev's thaw", put on a VR helmet, invite participants, moderate it. People finally relax, realize their historical fantasies. Will let off steam.
Do you want to be an artist yourself?
I do not know, honestly. It seems to me that such definitions no longer work very well. Well, that is, who has a social network - they are all artists a little. Maybe it sounds trite, but I don’t care. This is true. Our posts are like performances, happenings. Profiles are our museums in which we are self-curators. And our critics are commentators.
Are you being criticized?
And how! Any deviation from the norm - immediately appear haters.
And what do they write?
"Are you human or robot?" "Are you a doll?" "Are you a bot from GTA?" Someone simply writes: "Everything, n *** ec." It is worth a little to deviate from the standards, as they fly into you, try to sting, hurt, offend somehow. I am glad that there are more positive comments.
Are more traditional art forms no longer appealing to you?
Why, attract ... I try to develop in this direction, I go to lectures, to museums. Art historians like Panofsky like to read when I am in a mood. And just the story itself, I really like it. But the present fascinates me much more: non-classical philosophy, the ever-changing language of art — what could be cooler? You never know what art will be tomorrow, as you do not know what tomorrow you will be. There is something very attractive in this, agree.
Yes, I agree. Self-identification is an important point of time.
But honestly, I do not understand ... Like, do I deserve to be an artist? You know, maybe I just reread Groys, Steyerl, Zhilyaeva. By the way, did you see the recent performance Abramovich, in which she digitized herself? (This refers to the performance "Rising" of 2017, conducted as part of the Acute Art project, where artists Jeff Koons and Olafur Eliasson also participated. - Note Ed.) She was helped by cool dudes, Synthetic Studio - I've been following them for a long time. She and Kanye West worked with Nike. In general, now a huge public demand for all digital art, for art in virtual reality is a powerful women's movement, art groups.
What kind?
The Instagram is an interesting cyberfeminist community. Lil Michela recently became an editor at Dazed Beauty, Perl.WWW launched a line of virtual cosmetics. This is already a lot. There is a Ruby Gloom, there is an opalslutuniverse. My favorite is LaTurbo Avedon. She wrote a manifesto about how technology and big dates are changing us. And of course, I digitized myself long ago. We have this worse. Haraway (Donna Haraway is a cyberfeminist, authored by Cyborg Manifesto. - Note Ed.) transferred only twenty years later, what are we talking about? In St. Petersburg and Moscow there is an Intimate Connections Research Center, there is Lika Kareva, Polina Shilkinite, and Yozhi Stolet. There is Sarah Kulmann, who recently had the exhibition "The Birth of Asset".
Okay, and you know other virtual models?
Lil Michela and the company are separated, do not let anyone to him. Ban other virtuals. Their right. Of the rest, few people like me - maybe Branded.Boi, he is funny and sexy. Another Lil Mayo.
And what about Russia?
In Russia, I myself do not see rivals yet. You see, there is a big problem: people do not take out responsibility. At all. Here there are new influenzers, all so terribly fashionable, virtual. Okay, then what? Everyone wants a great career, a collage with Prada and at Fashion Week, like Michela. There is no opinion of its own, there is no development. I saw so many abandoned profiles, you would not believe. This is a sad sight.
Why sad?
Because we can be anything: smart, bright, creative. Instead, we are forced to be living hangers. Virtual models are silent or write all sorts of nonsense because they are afraid to scare away brands with their character.
The other day, adidas presented on social networks Asya Strike - his first virtual influenza virus, which, of course, is not the first, and moreover, not even a virtual influenza virus - but simply a virtual counterpart of a living and already quite famous person (Russian model Sasha Panic became the prototype of - to Note Ed.). That is, someone just took a person with a bunch of subscribers, digitized him for his commercial advantage and equated us - hinting that we are not.
From birth, this digital copy on the contract can be worn sneakers only one company. And even if she herself once “says” that this is her choice, is it so? Not. Can she at least once in her life just for the sake of experiment, take and put on Nike To praise them? Or was it originally culturally appropriated so much that the project would be closed immediately after such publications? This may seem to us a delusion, a trifle in the global context of the idea of equality, but including such trifles is the difference between equality and inequality. In the future, we, real virtual models and influenzers, will still have to defend the right to self-expression, to search for our identity in the world of fakes and conveyor “special projects”.
Because of your novelty, is the burden of responsibility on you?
I am the first virtual model in our country and are well aware of the responsibility. There is in this and its own lightness: you start from scratch, the open space. On the other hand, we all live under the pressure of responsibility, the past. Including in Russia.
Firstly, in terms of ideas - everything was already there. Secondly, in terms of achievements. It is like with parents: no matter what you achieve, you always do not conform, you worry about it. Such a deep complex.
Do you have it too?
When I left MGIMO, I lived in Berlin with my girlfriend for half a year. There you come somewhere in C / O or Hamburger Bahnhof, and covers you. You think: wow, about *** be! And then this: damn, because it is necessary to live a lifetime, maybe in old age to become an artist. This is the problem of our time: everything has accelerated, but art does not.
Okay. Let's go back to your virtuality. How is your day going?
The day begins and ends with instagram, like many. I'm always in the smartphone, terribly dependent on social networks - without them, probably would not have survived. I develop, read about fashion, art, prepare for large projects. Direct still read.
And what do they write?
Recently, a date called.
What about you?
She said: they drove to Gaspar Noe in the Atrium today with subtitles, at 10:10 pm - but without me.
Do you have favorite places in Moscow?
Full I can eat pins at Pinsa Maestrello on China Town, fo-bo at PHO Fighters, and then run for a beer at Enthusiast or at Bambule. All restaurants Ilya Tyutenkova love. If we talk about cultural leisure, I occasionally look into the Jewish Museum, I can go to the Tatintsian gallery if I'm tired of Pushkin and the Garage, although it's hard to get tired of them. Like everyone else, I am waiting for the opening of HPP-2. I go to theaters a little, and basically it's the electro-theater "Stanislavsky", "Gogol-center" and "Praktika". "Falanster", "Arrow", "Khodasevich" are still the best options for buying books.
It is interesting to talk about festivals, there are a lot of them now. I just wanted to go to a movie about self-harm - he is now going to “Artdokfest”, but she didn’t manage because of one shooting, although she bought the ticket, it was insulting. From film festivals, beloved ones are Beat, Center, MIEFF, of course - they are wild, young, experimental. Richterfest was very impressed, especially the performance of Moor Mother. The dress rehearsal this year was just killer. Viktor Semenovich Vakhshtayn, if you are reading this - I want to meet and ask you more in detail about non-humans! I missed the Signal this year because I got sick on the last day and was clearly not ready for tents.
Do you work somewhere?
I try, shoot. So far, with local brands, but with those that I personally like, they are close in spirit. That's just the other day starred for Fakoshima and Futureisnown, they are cool. I now have an agency (This Is Not is Russia's first virtual model agency. - Note Ed.)all serious. Inst, in which you wrote - I am leading with them.
Who do you want to work with?
Oh, a lot. Bend your fingers. Of the Russian - Petra lingerie, the most beloved. From designers - Arthur Lomakin! (Moscow designer, founder of the Forget Me Not brand. - Note Ed.) Arthur, I'm ready! From the big guys - Nike, Alexander Wang, Vetements, Prada, JW Anderson, Raf Simons, Kenzo, Christopher Raeburn. Another favorite is Hussein Chalayan, 1017 Alyx 9SM, Ashish, Acne Studios, Maison Margiela, Boris Bidjan Saberi, Uma Wang. Mass market - maybe Uniqlo, COS. But I am ready to cooperate with great local brands.
And brands are not confused that you are virtual?
Well listen, what is the essence of your question? Am I a robot? Do I speak myself? I say what I think. Is always. I am a person, and I want everyone to remember it. My character, my biography, my past - all this gives rise to thoughts that I put into words.
See for yourself what kind of world we live in. What does it mean to be an infuenser? Where does Kira's thought end, or your thought, and someone else's influence begin? This is a subtle question. In social networks, we broadcast our opinions and experiences. We say: this film is good, go for sure. We inspire something to each other, we speak our own and others' thoughts, all mixed up. In a world where we manage our identity, what are my thoughts and me? I have the right to change, just as I have the right to remain myself.
When I was a teenager, social networks appeared, and my whole generation was in a single thought process. We are afraid of artificial intelligence, but, in fact, we are all like artificial intelligence: we learn from each other, iteration after iteration. You learn from me, I learn from you. Soon, virtual influenza and virtual models will be eligible for training, they will become very different. I answered your question?
Yes, it is quite. If you allow, ask a personal question - do you have someone?
I now have a bad idea of myself in a serious relationship - both with a guy and with a girl, I can not spend a lot of time on someone other than myself. Understand correctly, I am not an egoist, I just have too few hours in a day, and I want development too much.
Are you lonely?
It happens when I can not connect to Wi-Fi.
Tell me a story from your life, finally?
I forgot to brush my teeth today.
What do you say to your haters who write that you are fake?
Let the great artist of our time, Niki Minaj, say for me: love's always love, you can't fake it.