Feelings deluxe (Thilda and Kyu; Morea; Loli; Fabiola; Olivia and Nicole; Carlo, Kyu, Olivia and Nicole; Emma), 2024
Tereza Glazova‘s work Feelings deluxe is a collection of video portraits created by the artist as an "anthological musical". Referring to the cinematic genre of anthology film – a collection of independent short films that complement each other around a common theme – the piece also flirts with certain codes of musicals through dramatic monologues, dance and musical elements. The research behind this work revolves around the possibility of conveying the authenticity of feelings by eliciting an opulence of emotion through video. As the frantic scrolling of video fed by online platforms orchestrates the rhythms of contemporary emotional life, we are invited to sit back and immerse ourselves in a stretched sentimentality.
The characters on screen are non-actors, friends of the artist, performing in sequences named after them, each with their own specific body language. Everyday scenes – trauma dumping at the dinner table, the euphoria of dancing to a favorite song, saying goodbye to a loved one from a train platform, the reproduction of an internet challenge – are immortalized and aestheticized in a cinematic format. The result is a collection of POVs – literally "points of view" – each offering privileged access to the intimacy of the artist‘s camera gaze. The different sequences, each in their own way, tell something about bodies in the present, from anxious self-awareness to overly seductive dancing through testing one’s bodily limits.
Although using cinéma-vérité processes, Glazova‘s work challenges the notion of authenticity: realness is always a performance. This play with the truth of explicitly staged situations is revealed in particular through the use of digital tools that subtly distort the projected image; all illusion is shattered. Contemporary culture, whose codes and trends are largely driven by the algorithms that curate digital content, is shown in slow motion, distorted by the artist in an artwork that questions the hyper-performance of self-exposure. Gestures reproduced in online spaces as expressions of identity are reappropriated to pinpoint where one wants to belong to. Here, the global phenomenon of an Internet challenge enters the dimension of the intimate.
Drake’s song "In My Feelings" – the original soundtrack for the Kiki challenge performed at twilight by Loli – serves as a reference for Glazova’s work’s title and is followed by the term "deluxe." This designation is commonly used to indicate reissues of musical albums offering additional content. Feelings deluxe is conceived as an ever-expanding video series, which gets gradually supplemented with new portraits. The exclusivity of the "deluxe" lies precisely in the intimacy to which we get access to in these personal declarations of love.
Monica Unser