Maya Man

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT borrows from the bubbly language and pastel aesthetics of text driven instagram graphics to scrutinize the promotion of wellness, self-care, and confidence on social media.

The piece concentrates on the rhetoric employed in these posts. Persuasive, upbeat, and relentlessly inspirational, there’s a sense of authority embedded in each one. By remixing words and phrases sourced from these types of existing instagram posts, the program generates combinations that mimic their cheerful tone, but range from feeling vaguely familiar to totally absurd.

Text is wrapped in the sugar cookie aesthetic world of “girl power positive vibes boss babe” kind of media, imitating the graphics designed to catch your eye as you’re scrolling through your feed. Visual variables include the output’s background style, color palette, and layout, as well as other decorative elements such as stars ✹, hearts ♡, flowers ✿, and sparkles ✧ :D

Online, these media objects survive on likes, comments, and shares. What do I believe? becomes What do I want to appear to believe? Fake it till you make it! Maybe your dream life lives here: In a digital, fantasy world where the algorithm plays god and loving yourself feels like looking into the light of your screen.

ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊♡ ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*ﾟ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*ﾟ✧･ﾟ

I’m Feeling Lucky focuses on the contemporary culture of astrology and how it prompts us to make sense of ourselves through its structures. Barthes calls astrology a “confirmation of the real.” There is comfort in the promise of realness over fantasy. Even if it's influenced by randomness, confirmation bias gives way to some kind of feeling of faith.

The title of the collection comes from Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button which initially embodied the energy of software and chance, but has evolved over the years in a way that parallels the fast-paced commercialization of the internet.

I don’t feel lucky anymore, but I want to Feel Lucky again…

Maya Man is an artist focused on contemporary identity culture on the internet. Her work examines dominant narratives around femininity, authenticity, and the performance of self online. In Hard Copy she examines a lawsuit between influencers Sydney Nicole Gifford and Alyssa Sheil, colloquially known as the “Sad Beige Lawsuit,” in which Gifford accused Sheil of replicating her content—from decor, to clothes, to nearly every aspect of her online persona. Each artwork is a page from an official legal document, taken directly from court filings and electronically signed by the artist. Presented as side-by-side comparisons and complete with screenshots from various social media platforms, websites, and hyperlinks, the pages fit naturally within Man’s work, even though the artifacts themselves are, in effect, stolen.

Ugly Bitches is a collection of GAN generated dolls who are ugly inside and out. Trained on images of over a thousand contemporary and vintage dolls, each one was randomly paired with a comment sourced from a female influencer’s Instagram and altered by the artists to replace “beauty” adjectives with “ugly” and feminine nouns, such as “woman” with “bitch.” Finally, each of the dolls pose in front of one of thirty-two unique Dall-E backgrounds generated based on popular influencer destinations. Warning: These Ugly Bitches don’t attempt to reclaim, empower, or celebrate... they’re just being themselves.

☆ released on the occasion of the Tribute to Herbert W. Franke

Maya Man’s unique contribution to Social Codes offers a new way to think about software and performance. Her deep explorations in art, dance, and code come together in “can I go where you go?” As a video clip of Maya dancing plays, her code analyzes the video frames one by one to generate a silhouette. This contour becomes an ever-changing shape the viewer can take charge of by drawing with it, or they can simply watch as the software performs itself.

Notes is a generative collection that dives into the vivid online universe of perfume descriptions. Pulling from lists of fragrance “notes,” product description text, and personal perfume reviews from fragrantica, Notes remixes found language into a unique visual output– a collaged, imaginary fragrance. Given the inability to sample scents through our phones or computers, perfumes rely on detailed descriptions to best communicate what a product smells like and persuade potential customers online. Notes requests its audience to use their scent imagination. With a visual sensibility inspired by magazine perfume ads, glossy bottles, and colorful language, this collection combines bright, evocative visuals and text to deliver you a computer conjured scent of your dreams.