Avatar

The Saturated World of Our Digital Lives

There seems to be a strange tension between the connected nature of our online identities and just how disconnected these virtual ‘second lives’ can be from reality. Carolina Mizrahi’s latest series Avatar is an arresting rendition of digital personalities at once vividly colourful and glaringly vacuous.

“Avatar was an aesthetic ‘development’from a previous work of mine,” said Carolina. “Meanwhile, I was especially interested in documentaries related to virtual life. From this marriage, Avatar was born.”



The series is characterised by being drenched in a garish pink veneer, an almost sickly sweet portrayal of idealised femininity. “I wanted to create a virtual world,” Carolina explained. “All my work is based on the representation of women in the media; pink is a colour attached to gendered society ideals for females.”

We downloaded Carolina’s further thoughts on the matter.

The Plus: Do you spend more of your personal time online than you do in the “real world”?
Carolina Mizrahi: No, I am a quite active person I would say.

TP: What’s the significance of the goldfish bowl?
CM: The goldfish represents the physical isolation that internet brings to our life. We are virtually in contact with everyone, although there is a physical barrier between us.

TP: Is separating our online/offline personalities not a bit of a false dichotomy?
CM: Personally speaking, ideally you should be and act the same online as you would offline. However, the internet gives you the power to ‘edit’ yourself and I know some people use this in order to pretend to be something they are not.

TP: Why do you think people want to disconnect with reality?
CM: That is very tricky question to answer, there’s a lot of different possibilities that might be related to their past or present life.

TP: Can you briefly describe the technical process behind Avatar?
CM: All the set design, clothes, makeup and hair were pink. The models arms, neck and legs were adjusted during post production in order to match the pink makeup.

TP: Will this be presented anywhere? Any future plans?
CM: This project was published on a fashion/arts magazine called Old Tat. I am currently working on a new project, but that’s still a secret…