The Parallel Realities of Kat Vlasova
We spend way too much time staring at screens, especially in a post-pandemic world, so why not make it more poetic and beautiful? NY artist Kat Vlasova has been making garage rock under the alias of Holographic Girlfriend and shooting portraits of strangers in the streets of Manhattan, but it is Augmented Reality that took her heart. When coding opens the doors to the future of Art, “AR allows you to defy gravity, logic, and the meaning of physical appearance.”
Photo and videos by Kat Vlasova
NOUVEAU YORK: Are you still based in New York?
KAT VLASOVA: I graduated college during the beginning of the pandemic and as a result had to move back in with my parents, so I am currently in the greater DC area until I become more financially stable and can afford to move back to Brooklyn.
NY: What’s your state of mind?
KV: I'm definitely in the lowest place I've ever been mentally, and have found it incredibly difficult to see any sort of hope or future for myself as this nebulous situation persists. I am very grateful for my health and safety, but it has been incredibly difficult to push myself to create more work as I continue to deal with burnout, anxiety and depression.
NY: As a New York artist, your focus has moved from making music and photos to work on Augmented Reality. Did the move make even more sense in these difficult times?
KV: Nothing will ever replace my love for traditional visual art mediums that allow me to use my hands but I became attracted to AR because it is such a new and accessible field. I love the idea of parallel realities and being able to integrate existing bodies and spaces around the user with augmented objects, in order to evoke a sense of wonder. Especially now, when travel is restricted and we cannot easily do in-person productions or art shows, I am still able to integrate my work and let people wear it on their faces or display it in their rooms. AR allows you to defy gravity, logic, and the meaning of physical appearance.
“Especially right now, any work I make is done for escapism.”
NY: It is very promising.
KV: It's extremely exciting to be working in a field that has barely begun to develop. This gives me greater room to experiment and not feel too bad if something I try doesn't work out the way I hoped it would because the technology itself is constantly evolving.
NY: You’ve defined yourself as a “designer, creative technologist and multimedia artist”, “somewhere at the intersection of art and technology”. Can you make it shorter?
KV: I'm an artist who can code. Or a programmer who's wired to use technology for artistic purposes.
NY: What are your approach and your goals when working on AR?
KV: I think the backbone of my creative process for AR comes from fashion design and set design. I love to make things look pretty and captivating. My current goals in AR revolve around taking existing physical objects we interact with daily, such as location landmarks or the clothes we wear, and integrate an AR narrative into them that gives it a new meaning. I want to provide a way for people to express themselves and escape from the monotony of daily life. Especially right now, any work I make is done for escapism.
NY: You once said that your two favorite artists of the 20th century are Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat… Two New Yorkers.
KV: This statement is a bit outdated [Laughs]. I'd actually like to switch Andy Warhol to Robert Rauschenberg. I went to his retrospective at the MoMA a couple years ago and almost started crying because of how much his sense of humor resonated with me. My favorite piece by Rauschenberg is “Monogram” – I believe he got that stuffed goat at a flea market and this combine went through multiple iterations until he realized it was better if it was simply left alone.
NY: What about Basquiat?
KV: I do still love his paintings, because of the tumultuous feelings he managed to encompass within his work but I’d also like to change him to Nam June Paik as a more current 20th century art inspiration. I really came to love his practice when I began to work with technology after changing my major halfway through school. As a teen I used to spend a lot of time in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC, and it has two large Nam June Paik installations, “Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S.” and “Megatron/Matrix”. You will never be bored watching them. Like with Rauschenberg, Paik's work is a bit chaotic and he pushed the boundaries of what was expected of art at his time.
“I spent the majority of my adolescence romanticizing NYC in the 60’s, 70’s and early 2000’s because of all the bands I was obsessed with.”
NY: Is Nam June Paik’s work still pertinent today?
KV: I think it’s even more relevant now, because it captures the feeling of information overload and technological exhaustion that we're getting from our phones and social media. Paik was one of the first non-painters whose work I saw and realized that art made with audio, video and other digital tech could also have a powerful emotional effect on the audience and directly express the chaos I feel inside my brain.
NY: Which contemporary New York artists have been a strong inspiration?
KV: As I've pivoted more to New Media art, I am also very inspired by projects of past alumni of the NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program and others who work within the interactive/creative tech sphere in the city. Zach Lieberman is a huge inspiration to me as a master of creating beautiful graphics through programming. He helped create the School for Poetic Computation in New York. I also really admire Olivia Jack, who does phenomenal live coding visual art performances and developed a live coding environment called Hydra, which I hope to learn to use one day.
NY: Describing one of your photo series, you talked about “the strange feeling of disconnect and introspection that many freshman experience at some point during their first year in NYC.” Tell us about your own feelings during your first year in NYC?
KV: I spent the majority of my adolescence reading about and romanticizing NYC in the 60’s, 70’s and early 2000’s because of all the bands I was obsessed with at the time and it really shattered my heart and soul when I moved here and realized you had to be wealthy to be a self-sustained artist here now. I spent a lot of freshman year feeling very alienated and confused, trying to figure out my place and trying to beat my social anxiety. I mostly took photos of people because it made it easier to get to know them – I was too scared to simply ask someone to hang out. It was fun to capture all of their beautiful faces, and it made me happy if they were happy with the outcome.
“I feel at home in NYC more than anywhere else I've ever lived.”
NY: What is your feeling today when you walk around NYC streets?
KV: I feel at home here more than anywhere else I've ever lived and I am enamored with learning more and more about its history every year.
NY: What does the future look like?
KV: I think the future looks like helping your neighbors more. Being kind, understanding that others have lived in a different environment from you and that we need to listen to the voices of those who are struggling and magnify their voices rather than speak over them. When I moved to the U.S. as a kid I was taught about the American Dream and took the ‘grind till you die’ mentality to heart. I no longer think that this obsession with profit over physical and emotional health is the best way to live. I do not believe that it's normal for hundreds of thousands of people to suffer in order for the few at the top to thrive. I want life to get better for everyone. It will take time, it will take work, it will not be easy but change will happen.
