The Los Angeles-based artist talks to IN Magazine about TikTok viralitay, marrying themself, and what the craziest thing about being creative really is…
By Bianca Guzzo
If you’re no stranger to endless scrolls on your TikTok FYP (For You Page) during lulls in the workday, your evening commute, or late at night before you fall asleep, chances are you’ve seen Vita Kari and their art on your phone screen. They’re an LA-based artist known for out-of-the-box performance pieces. You’d probably recognize them as the person who asks, “Do you know what the craziest thing about being creative is?” before revealing that the hand holding a paintbrush to their face was actually a hyper-realistic photo on a piece of paper the whole time. The reception of their work online has made them into a Frida Kahlo for the digital age, often using their own image to express different sides of “the self” and their own gender identity. IN Magazine had the chance to chat to them about their art, where they got the inspiration for their live performance pieces, the beauty in becoming a meme and, of course, TikTok.
Millions of videos are shared on TikTok daily. They’re then fed into an algorithm that gives you the content it thinks you’ll like and engage with the most. Some of it is tailor-made for rage bait, dance trends or media promotion, but woven throughout is art. Social media platforms like TikTok have allowed artists like Kari a whole new way to share their art with the world. “So many would never walk into a gallery space unless they’re really right there,” says Kari. “So, the internet allows for so many to see work and engage with it that maybe otherwise they wouldn’t have.”
Kari says their journey with sharing their art online started with a fascination of “the self” and really wanting to push the boundaries of what that could be. They say they actually started with music, but although they enjoyed the ritual of people gathering to witness a performance, the act of singing wasn’t really for them. “I really loved the idea that you can have a group of people around and play with the expectations of what they were hoping for at that moment,” Kari says. Their art is also heavily centred around different ways they can perform various facets of their gender expression online. Their “Craziest Thing” series was born from playing with the “femme influencer” voice we’ve all become all too familiar with, and then twisting it into something else to keep their audience on their toes.
They also always planned to go viral. In a world where many are scared of being mocked online by the masses, Kari was determined to know what it would be like to be meme’d as a medium for art. When they’re told they’re reminiscent of a digital Frida Kahlo, they are honoured by the comparison …but point out that Kahlo’s work and image, once edgy and surrealist, has been replicated so much over the years that it’s become a meme in and of itself. “She’s lost the personhood in terms of how her image has been exploited, and essentially in some ways the replication of the self so many times is what a meme is, right? It’s the idea that has kind of lost the original meaning because it’s been replicated so many times.”
Aside from posting videos online, Kari has showcased their art in physical spaces, too. Recently they held a wedding where they married a digital version of themselves on a screen (you can watch small scenes from it on their TikTok). They explain that the ceremony starts like any other wedding: they’re walked up the aisle, there’s a wedding party, their sister cries…and then, at the altar, they’re met with a video of themself. Everything is timed perfectly so the responses feel real, and then all of a sudden, the video starts to glitch, and the wedding party starts repeatedly chanting, “The body will die but virality is forever.” They tell me the only people who knew exactly what was going to happen were their fellow performers, so all of their guests (including Kari’s young niece) watched in shock and awe as their body was dragged from the altar, never fully sealing the deal with the marriage.
They say the idea to marry themselves came from a fascination with AI chatbots, and an article about one who wouldn’t reciprocate romantic feelings back to the person using it. They were also partially inspired by Spike Jonze’s 2014 movie Her, which follows a man who builds a relationship with an operating system that eventually turns romantic. “We’re all, in a way, in charge of the autonomy of our virtual identities,” Kari says. It’s all part of the overarching theme that pretty much all of their art touches on of what it means to have a “digital self” and what each of our relationships are with our online identities, like meeting a doppelganger in the wild.
Of course, sharing anything online with an audience comes with feedback, some good and some critical. However, posting your art online as a queer artist invites a lot more to the comment section. I ask them about how they sort valid critique of their work and comments from internet trolls. “I think the day that discourse is not being had is the day that I die,” they respond. “Like if I’m not making somebody upset, then I didn’t do a job, my job, right, you know?”
Kari welcomes all kinds of discussions in the comment sections of their videos, but some of the comments can go beyond critique or curiosity. They say that the negative comments they get on their work reaffirms to them that what they’re creating is having the exact divisive reaction that they wanted. They generally welcome all kinds of comments below their videos, aside from the transphobic ones. “Whether it’s heavy criticism from an incredibly academic standpoint that’s really coming at you, or just people being like, ‘I effing hate this,’ you want it all. Anything divisive is good. When people are just indifferent, that’s when your work isn’t strong enough.”
And while they’re not super comfortable being referred to as a queer trailblazer in the digital art space, they make sure to keep paving the way for other queer artists to be given a platform to share their work, too. They tell me they recently went to a Catherine Opie exhibit at Regen Preojects in LA. Opie is a fine-art photographer who’s well-known for her portraits of the Los Angeles leather-dyke community. Her photos study the connection between mainstream society and life on the fringes of it, through both portrait and landscape photography. “So many of her photos honestly looked a lot like the events I go to today and I’m like, ‘Could this have just been taken like this weekend?’ I was shocked, actually, at how much has almost not changed in terms of the trans and queer community. It looks very similar,” Kari says.“ It looks like a Saturday night, but for her to have those images and to put them out there was a big deal, right? And I really take that for granted.”
Kari mentions that they hope that their art has helped pave the way in online spaces for other queer creatives to be seen on the main pages of social media sites, since queer content is so often held back from being promoted the same way other content is. The only way that a queer-centred algorithm can be built is if you engage with queer content often. They know that as a queer artist, their work getting repeatedly pushed to the front pages comes with “a million privileges,” and that isn’t lost on them.
“I think for a lot of people, maybe it’s the first time they’re running into they/them discussion fights in the comments, potentially because it’s the first time it’s come up on the mainstream FYP. So maybe one day these types of videos will be normalized, and I hope that is something I’ve opened the doors to in some way,” they say. “I hope one day we can all post our videos and when it hits the mainstream pages, it won’t be a war zone in our comments over pronouns.”
Algorithms and trend cycles are short, and, unsurprisingly, Kari doesn’t really subscribe to the time frame of the traditional lifecycle of a trend. They’ll do something until they’re personally over it. “I’m a series-based artist and there are so many different people that work in different ways, but I have always been a series-based person. As a performance artist and as a video artist, or even as somebody that makes objects, everything is series based,” they say. They tell me they’re currently working on a series recreating their grandmother’s rugs. “I will squeeze every inch of interest out of that. And then when I’m bored, I will never do it again” (although, they add, they’ll never rule out revisiting past projects if they start to feel fresh again). They agree their content works in a trend-based video economy, but have no qualms about going past the sweet point of relevancy in order to further explore the personhood of memes. “I still have work to do to see what that looks like.”
They reveal their biggest dream is to have their work projected on the Las Vegas Sphere, but they’re also the most proud of their dog, their relationship with their family, their partner, and their community. They say the craziest thing about being creative actually is that they can walk around their hometown of Los Angeles and be stopped by people who know their videos from social media, but no matter how much things may change or how many views their videos get, in some ways they’re still just their Grandma Rita’s grandchild. Especially at LA’s Canters Deli, where their Grandma Rita is an icon herself.
Kari encourages everyone to get creative, with whatever you can find around the house. “I think that’s the fun part about this: you actually don’t really need anything specific. You don’t really need anything beyond the printer in your house, if you have one,” they say. Whether you decide to trick perspective using hyper-realistic printouts of your hands on video, marry a digital version of yourself to highlight the autonomy of our online personas, or put your own spin on a nostalgic piece of your childhood, the craziest part about being creative is that anybody can tap into it.
Kari has shown us that art is out there waiting to be created and shared in all the fun and wild new ways we can come up with. Their authenticity shines through every piece they think of and every post that comes across our FYP. They’ve proven that short-form video can also be thought-provoking art pieces that explore complex ideas worthy of discourse and celebration. Luckily for us, their art will be there to spark a conversation and inspire others to create their own, too.
BIANCA GUZZO is a writer based out of the GTA. She spends her free time watching Trixie Mattel makeup tutorials, though she has yet to nail the look.
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