s3lf.tech
2026
4K video, 17'
With the support of CNC; Fondation des Artistes; Villa Kujoyama (IF, IF du Japon and Bettencourt Schueller foundation); 40mcube; Ambivalences program (Electroni[k], Oblique/s, Station Mir, Stereolux); SCAM
4K video, 17'
With the support of CNC; Fondation des Artistes; Villa Kujoyama (IF, IF du Japon and Bettencourt Schueller foundation); 40mcube; Ambivalences program (Electroni[k], Oblique/s, Station Mir, Stereolux); SCAM
Voice performers: Louise Porter, Erusha, Aonosuke; 3D avatars: Placebo; illustrations: BqBae, Enazu; animation/editing: AwChicks, Phaeris; environment: Mocie; 3D simulation/textures: Vincent Caroff
s3lf.tech is an animated film presented as a livestream of the virtual idol Grim3s.
VTubing is a streaming practice in which a person appears through a real-time animated avatar rather than with their own face. The video adopts this mode of address and keeps the signs of the live format: direct-to-camera speech, comments, latency, interruptions... The livestream (which took place on YouTube) gives Grim3s the status of an event: she is not simply introduced as a fictional character, she takes place before an audience, in the fragile time of an online appearance.
Derived from the world of the singer Grimes, Grim3s extends several motifs associated with the artist: the pop star as persona, the voice as signature, the avatar as an extension of the self. In the video, she unveils s3lf.tech, a fictional technology inspired by www.elf.tech, Grimes’s real tool for transforming any voice into her own. The fiction then imagines a further step: after the voice, identity as a whole could be delegated, distributed, replayed by autonomous digital doubles. This promise — a power of ubiquity placed in the service of mere productive survival — is also what unravels the livestream from within. The situation breaks down, and with it the authority of the live as a guarantee of truth: where one expects a more authentic underside (the real person beneath the avatar), another version appears instead. The device never delivers a final layer, only variations, like an online subjectivity already fragmented into usernames, profiles and archives. The figure lends itself to desire because it is constructed and adjustable, with no interiority to protect. But s3lf.tech reverses this docility: the double eventually begins to want and act for itself.
Made following a residency at Villa Kujoyama, the film belongs to a wider ensemble — videos, customized keyboards, a collector doll, online extensions (participatory website, social media, YouTube channel, music released on streaming platforms...) — which unfolds these questions of embodiment, parasocial attachment and the delegation of the self.
Exhibition views: Margot Montigny
s3lf.tech is an animated film presented as a livestream of the virtual idol Grim3s.
VTubing is a streaming practice in which a person appears through a real-time animated avatar rather than with their own face. The video adopts this mode of address and keeps the signs of the live format: direct-to-camera speech, comments, latency, interruptions... The livestream (which took place on YouTube) gives Grim3s the status of an event: she is not simply introduced as a fictional character, she takes place before an audience, in the fragile time of an online appearance.
Derived from the world of the singer Grimes, Grim3s extends several motifs associated with the artist: the pop star as persona, the voice as signature, the avatar as an extension of the self. In the video, she unveils s3lf.tech, a fictional technology inspired by www.elf.tech, Grimes’s real tool for transforming any voice into her own. The fiction then imagines a further step: after the voice, identity as a whole could be delegated, distributed, replayed by autonomous digital doubles. This promise — a power of ubiquity placed in the service of mere productive survival — is also what unravels the livestream from within. The situation breaks down, and with it the authority of the live as a guarantee of truth: where one expects a more authentic underside (the real person beneath the avatar), another version appears instead. The device never delivers a final layer, only variations, like an online subjectivity already fragmented into usernames, profiles and archives. The figure lends itself to desire because it is constructed and adjustable, with no interiority to protect. But s3lf.tech reverses this docility: the double eventually begins to want and act for itself.
Made following a residency at Villa Kujoyama, the film belongs to a wider ensemble — videos, customized keyboards, a collector doll, online extensions (participatory website, social media, YouTube channel, music released on streaming platforms...) — which unfolds these questions of embodiment, parasocial attachment and the delegation of the self.
Exhibition views: Margot Montigny
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Associated works >
s3lf.tech (exhibition)Glass Doll
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