I Am Whatever You Want Me To Be

Abstract

"I Am Whatever You Want Me To Be" is an opulent photographic self-portrait that shows four archetypical characters referring to artist's previous work. It combines Bulgarian tradition (the pagan figure of the kukeri dancer, wearing a beast like costume) and Bulgaria's struggle with the idea of tradition (the chalga singer, embodying the folk music tradition and a new social identity arouse in Bulgaria in the nineties) with quotes from American pop-culture (boom box, fast food, television), in a familiar, yet unusual setting. The image is a freeze-frame of an implosion of space and time. As in general relativity time and space are part of the same continuum and gravitation is only a curvature of space, the free market theory reduces culture to the supply/demand continuum, art is only a curvature of consumerism. The four characters, as moments in time, coexist impossibly in the space of digital photography. It is the Big Bang in reverse: instead of nothing exploding into everything, this is everything imploding into nothing (as in the case of art imploding into advertising). The photo is a freeze frame of such a universe.
In order to communicate her idea, Daniela performed each character for the shot by posing in the four different costumes herself. Later she digitally stitched the shots in a large format composite printed on canvas.