My Best Thing (2012)
By Frances Stark
Two avatars converse amidst a green screen haze. Their bodies are truncated, like two stout soda cans. No necks here, just spherical heads (she brunette, he blond) that swivel on boxy chests. Their so-called ‘private parts’ are covered in leaves, as if they are low-budget 3d renderings of the first man and first woman (except here the protective leaves are in the shape of swimwear). These are the some of the optional bodies offered by Xtranormal, a readymade animation provider through which millions of amateur movies have been made, and through which the artist Frances Stark gave form to a months-long virtual relationship she struck up with a previously unknown man. Unfolding through episodes that feel alternately like installments of a television drama or a recurring dream, the conversations jump between politics, personal biography, and music, escalate quickly from arousal to the (alleged) reaching of sexual climax, and are strewn with awkward silences. All are enunciated by a monotone computerized voice that doesn't inflect or mute any aspect of speech. Here, the mumblings and mutterings--“umm” “oof”--that interrupt speech and manifest inhibitions are as flat and as loud as a…
Watch My Best Thing on Fast Ubu