Oil paint has long been used to depict the sheen and texture of flesh, with artists using its unique illusionistic properties to heighten the realism of their subject’s presence. Kalinovski takes a different approach in his work: he uses oil paint to depict the flat screen upon which flesh is displayed.
Drawing inspiration from digital and analog video stills, Kalinovski mobilizes the illusionistic qualities of oil paint to depict another illusion: the flat, distorted world of the screen. Pixels become brushstrokes as electronic images are solidified and materialized according to the logic and realism of the screen rather than referencing any deeper reality beyond the surface. The figures, faces, and flesh onscreen aren’t brought into being with paint but, rather, remain remote in the realm of fantasy, frozen under gleaming layers of jewel-like varnish, oil, and resin.
Jacques Lacan’s famous adage “il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel” can be interpreted to mean that any direct connection between individuals is impossible. Instead, desire is always mediated by something, whether by various “partial objects” of the Other (gaze, voice, etc.) or by each partner’s private fantasies. These fantasies and desires aren’t our own: rather, we learn to desire from exposure to media, especially the alluring narratives and images of film and video. In painting stills from erotic and pornographic movies, Kalinovski depicts the residue of such internal fantasies after they have been externalized and commodified. Splayed across the screen, the fetishized body becomes a machine for the perpetual generation of artificial desire.
The scenes and shots Kalinovski paints present the subject as tantalizingly close yet untouchably distant. Whether brushing her teeth, holding her hand against the camera lens, or staring into a camcorder held inches away from her face, her closeness fills the entire frame with a suffocating intimacy. Despite this apparent closeness, the subject — the other — remains distant and is ultimately inaccessible, eternally separated from the viewer under veils of mediation: paint, screen, camera, lens, character, performer, and fantasy. A complete portrait of the other as a human being is an impossibility. In its place is an endless litany of partial simulacra: images of images of images floating onscreen, untethered from material reality.
Hatsune Miku is an international pop star who has played concerts across the world. She is also a piece of software, the public face of Yamaha's Vocaloid speech synthesis software. Her voice can be purchased and used to sing any kind of song imaginable, and her body can be downloaded and used in digitally-choreographed dance routines. Drawing on these notions of posthuman celebrity, "Miku Forever" is a media artwork featuring an endlessly iterating pop song perpetually performed by this virtual idol. The song's lyrics are randomly generated from a corpus of words from past songs she has performed, rearranging her old material to create something new. Her body, whether projected into the performance space (as in her official live concerts) or streamed over the internet, is one of thousands of fan-made 3D models publically available for download. Similarly, her dance routines are randomly pieced together from fragments of open-licensed choreography created with “MikuMiku Dance,” an animation program originally designed specifically to allow fans to choreograph Miku’s movements. “Miku Forever” manifests the infinite iterability of digital processes and the endless potential, malleability, and reach of Miku’s image and voice as mediated through countless official and fan-created interpretations. It presents Miku as a new brand of idol: hers is a kind of distributed celebrity that doesn’t emerge from a singular human subject but is instead collaboratively created, perpetuated, and reinvented by her global fanbase.
Concept and Program: Roman Kalinovski
Original Music Composition and Arrangement: Christopher Palmer
Vocals, Performance, Lyrics, and Choreography: Hatsune Miku