Toni Soprano Meneglejte: BFF – Attempt No. 2

“HAPPY DAYS WITH A.I.”

Toni Soprano Meneglejte started creating her work Happy Days with A.I. during the pandemic, when she spent a lot of time in the company of her computer. In doing so, she transformed herself into a completely fictional character who is also excessively happy. Although digital space is often a space for idealized self-presentation, she avoids this and instead of an idealized avatar creates a “smear” that resists the expected visual code with its image. The work is placed in the context of the development of computer bodies, visual worlds and applications with artificial intelligence and at the same time comments on them. In doing so, she questions the reality of the created digital identities that flood our screens. Algorithmically controlled processes and applications of artificial intelligence affect our behavior on an everyday level, which is often expressed in the form of new virtual protagonists. Although these were initially used as virtual assistants for commercial purposes, the artist is interested in how to deconstruct computer-generated characters surrounded by heteronormative stereotypes. Happy Days with A.I. therefore responds with a hybrid body image that seeks answers to the existing state and asks: what is the future of the human image?
Irena Borić

Video installation: Toni Soprano Menegležte and Emmett A.I.
Live: Jerica Smrečnik, Lan Žiga Anderlič, Petja Golec Horvat, Voranc Mandić
Production: Bunker, Ljubljana

BFF – Attempt No. 2 is part of the two-year artistic opus of Toni Soprano Meneglejte, which is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and produced by the Bunker Institute.