ARTIST’S APPROACH
Using videos, digital prints and other media with the power to reach denizens of the Internet and social networks, Molly Soda explores the idea of individuality confronted with technologies. Celebrated for her online performances, Molly Soda uses contemporary Web culture for purposes of cyberfeminism. Using a discourse particular to contemporary users of popular media and social networks, the artist is interested in the vulnerability and the loneliness of women faced with the immensity of the Web.
THE ARTWORK
6 times cameras caught Molly Soda off guard
Photography, 2016-2018
Amalia Soto alias Molly Soda has always been drawn to paparazzi photographs, not because she’s particularly interested in the people being photographed, but more so in their form and what they mean to us as a society. Why are we interested in catching someone in the act of doing something, even something as mundane as paying a parking meter or going to the grocery store? Perhaps because we deem it as the most authentic lens through which to view someone when they don’t know they’re being watched.
Paparazzi photographs are ugly, blurry, and grainy. The only reason to publish the photograph is because the subject has some form of celebrity. We’re constantly seeking the truth and want to know that even the wealthiest, shiniest people are just like us. They cry, they drink too much, they eat in their cars… and we need hard, photographic evidence of it.
Molly has been staging “fake” paparazzi photos for some time, asking someone to follow her around and photograph her as she runs errands or crosses the street. She turned the form on herself, taking back control while passing for something candid or authentic. There is no way of knowing whether or not something is staged, even when we hold these photographs to be evidence of something.
Curator : Maude Arsenault
