Laila was the first character we had before we moved into ‘The Identity Machinery’. The idea was to make a work about the exotification of Roma people: in all fairytales and in romantic pop culture ‘Gypsies’ are great, traveling and spiritual people. Yet everywhere Roma are extremely discriminated and treated with prejudice. Things are never simple and as we got inspired by the infamous ‘Foxglove‘ story, we painted this ‘nightly fire’ as ‘gypsies’ are usually pictured as people who dance and party around the fire in the night. She dances on credit cards of her lovers but we thought it would be great if it looked clearly fake, a bit like a ’30s movie poster.

 

We have not worked on her character after we started going wild with the other characters. But here time will come!

 

Laura A Dima and I have a project we call ‘The Identity Machinery’ – this is an ongoing artwork about a person suffering from a ‘Multiple reality Disorder’. Laura plays all the characters for which we create fictional worlds and we take care of the styling and assigned art together.

Laila Esmaralda is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or naivité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Lana Claravera is a yoga teacher and a life coach. She operates mostly on Instagram where she gives instructions on how to find your Inner Goddess. She gives advises that lead to a True Spiritual Lifestyle by a system she developed, called The Body Knows (TBK).

She went through a lot of sad events in her life but dragged herself out with the help of yoga and fasting. It’s true she also got help from ‘beyond’ but she is willing to share what she knows.

Laura A Dima and I have a project we call ‘The Identity Machinery’ – this is an ongoing artwork about a person suffering from a ‘Multiple reality Disorder’. Laura plays all the characters for which we create fictional worlds and we take care of the styling and assigned art together.

Lana Claravera  is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or naivité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Lana Claravera is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here.

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job.

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or navité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Lena Draganovitch is a mail-order bride from Romania. She married a rich guy and fills her time with (making photos in the) gym, influencing and shopping. Her best friend is a gay fashion designer and she also has a coach that she gets along with really well. She is, in short, the epiphany of the instagram influencer: always seen in hotels, pools, restaurants and other fancy places.

Lena Draganovitch  is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or navité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Lena Draganovitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’, created by Laura A Dima and myself. Laura plays an Instagram entity that suffers from Multiple Reality Disorder (MDR). We play with cliché’s, and with the prejudices and expectations of our audience as we give all sublimated stereotypes a life story on their own: all of them are very lonely and have one specific problem that is related to respect and the lack thereof.

Lena is the ultimate ‘Fitmum’ who is lonely, seeks attention on Instagram by trying half heartily to be an influencer and has stuff. She neglects her baby and married for money.

Here she is in Amsterdam.

Lena Draganovitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’, created by Laura A Dima and myself. Laura plays an Instagram entity that suffers from Multiple Reality Disorder (MDR). We play with cliché’s, and with the prejudices and expectations of our audience as we give all sublimated stereotypes a life story on their own: all of them are very lonely and have one specific problem that is related to respect and the lack thereof.

Lena is the ultimate ‘Fitmum’ who is lonely, seeks attention on Instagram by trying half heartily to be an influencer and has stuff. She neglects her baby and married for money.

 

Here she is in Paris.

Lena Draganovitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’, created by Laura A Dima and myself. Laura plays an Instagram entity that suffers from Multiple Reality Disorder (MDR). We play with cliché’s, and with the prejudices and expectations of our audience as we give all sublimated stereotypes a life story on their own: all of them are very lonely and have one specific problem that is related to respect and the lack thereof.

Lena is the ultimate ‘Fitmum’ who is lonely, seeks attention on Instagram by trying half heartily to be an influencer and has stuff. She neglects her baby and married for money.

linda Cantacalma is a freelance nurse: she worked in several hospitals but got fired every time she becomes too critical about the hospital system. Now she started a service of her own in which she is the only employee. She designed her own uniform for this.

Laura A Dima and I have a project we call ‘The Identity Machinery’ – this is an ongoing artwork about a person suffering from a ‘Multiple reality Disorder’. Laura plays all the characters for which we create fictional worlds and we take care of the styling and assigned art together.

Linda Cantacalma is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or naivité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Al the characters are personages Laura could have become had she made another choice at a certain moment in het life.

 

This is linda in her blue period.

linda Cantacalma is a freelance nurse: she worked in several hospitals but got fired every time she becomes too critical about the hospital system. Now she started a service of her own in which she is the only employee. She designed her own uniform for this.

Laura A Dima and I have a project we call ‘The Identity Machinery’ – this is an ongoing artwork about a person suffering from a ‘Multiple reality Disorder’. Laura plays all the characters for which we create fictional worlds and we take care of the styling and assigned art together.

Linda Cantacalma is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or naivité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Al the characters are personages Laura could have become had she made another choice at a certain moment in het life.

 

This is linda in her pink period.

Laura A Dima and I have a project we call ‘The Identity Machinery’ – this is an ongoing artwork about a person suffering from a ‘Multiple reality Disorder’. Laura plays all the characters for which we create fictional worlds and we take care of the styling and assigned art together.

Lola Luminova is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or naivité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

 

Here is a series referring to Lola’s discovery by ‘a dutch photographer visiting Romania’.

Lola’s first official shoot. Did it get out of hand?

Loulou Pisica once was a naked furry, a girl who likes to dress in catsuits. But she developed into a dominatrix who sometimes turns out to be a slave. But she hates men, that is for sure.

Laura A Dima and I have a project we call ‘The Identity Machinery’ – this is an ongoing artwork about a person suffering from a ‘Multiple reality Disorder’. Laura plays all the characters for which we create fictional worlds and we take care of the styling and assigned art together.

Loulou Pisica is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or naivité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

 

Here’s loulou in her pink period.

Luna Lovewitch is a goth girl from Romania. She came to Amsterdam to study psychology and has an unhealthy interest in the occult. She is very lonely but she gets involved  with a dominatrix and falls in love with her imaginary friend. Or is this a real ghost?

Luna Lovewitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or navité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Luna Lovewitch is a goth girl from Romania. She came to Amsterdam to study psychology and has an unhealthy interest in the occult. She is very lonely but she gets involved  with a dominatrix and falls in love with her imaginary friend. Or is this a real ghost?

Luna Lovewitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or navité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

Here she is summoning the devil and having contact with a deceased lover.

Luna Lovewitch is a goth girl from Romania. She came to Amsterdam to study psychology and has an unhealthy interest in the occult. She is very lonely but she gets involved  with a dominatrix and falls in love with her imaginary friend. Or is this a real ghost?

Luna Lovewitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or navité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

 

Here’s Luna entertaining herself at home.

Luna Lovewitch is a goth girl from Romania. She came to Amsterdam to study psychology and has an unhealthy interest in the occult. She is very lonely but she gets involved  with a dominatrix and falls in love with her imaginary friend. Or is this a real ghost?

Luna Lovewitch is a character from ‘The Identity Machinery’ – a project that at this moment is mostly a soap on Instagram. It is a collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima, who plays the characters. I do the photography and together we doe the styling, making up the stories and everything.

The Identity Machinery started because of out interest in fetishism and psychology, or perhaps mostly in group behaviour. We noticed that fetishes and women’s attire often are derivates from a functional starting position. Nun’s or Nurse’s clothes indicated a function and a way of life – but type those terms in a search engine and you will see something else compared to how it used to look. Also, the derivates are quite different than the originals: if you look at it with an artistic eye, the ‘French Maid’ costume you’ll see now when you search is a sublime abstraction of the original: you’ll get only what you need to recognise it as such and it shows how conceptual the human mind is. Besides that the costumes are of course very sexualised and minimised and to us it seemed we missed a bit of a chance here. 

We have a preference of the very beginning of the sexualisation of uniforms and the like. In ’40’s, ’50’s and ’60’s films for instance, you will see pretty people in pretty uniforms, not objectified yet, usually having a real character but somehow very attractive.  We take this confusing and somewhat voyeuristic look at attire as a starting position to do statements about the objectification of the self on Instagram: there are lots of ‘influencers’ out there who are only skin deep – and yet they are nowadays pop stars. We wonder how out society could come so far that holding up a product on camera is a seen as an envious dream job. 

We see a lot of stupidity on social media: the ultimate democracy of free opinions led us to a world where we are empty shells who compete in beauty and wealth, and can say anything without feeling consequences. Yet we share in tribes of the likeminded and think we are ‘right’ by having ‘followers’, and throll others.

We try to make the ultimate Instagram cliché’s, sublime objectifications of ‘types’ of women, and then give them a story of their own. As a result we reverse the mass-social tendency to objectify women.

But, in our work, humor always plays a role. We love to vent out the stupidity or navité of certain characters. We enjoy the stupid reactions, mostly of men ready to give up everything for an image and people who think they can talk on behalf of ‘all women’ when they publicly try to point out flaws in our morals.

 

As we are working with cliché’s (used as a medium itself): here she is posing at the graveyard.

The Identity Machinery is an art project in collaboration with my partner Laura A Dima. We bring to life a person suffering from a Multiple Reality Disorder. But maybe it is just a story about the possibility of multiple realities.

On this poster, you see the characters in something that seems a mix between a lab, a church, a prostitute’s street, a strip show and a jail. Note that the typography consists of particle hexagons.

this is the cover for my single ‘Multiple Reality Disorder‘ – ironically coined ‘The Most Urgent Pop Song In History’.

To know more about the project, either look at my music department or at the tag ‘The Identity Machinery’ on Instagram.

This is the videoclip for ‘Multiple Reality Disorder’.
Laura A Dima and I develop an ongoing photo soap opera on Instagram in which our main character suffers from ‘multiple Reality Disorder’. We follow the avatars that in real life could never meet because they live in different realities. Yet they formed a girlband and this is the video of their first hit.

Please watch until the credits as many talented people helped me with this.

I am proud of the clip and the music: i love the composition and the sound of the production, i love it that you can stop the video at any moment and you’ll have a key image with a lot of expressiveness.