Conversation / MV Brown

Rooted in performance, MV Brown’s practice uses the human body and new technologies to explore tensions across embodied subjectivity, the body as spectacle and socio-techno constructs of gender and sexuality. Their practice builds upon questions around the (non)performance of daily life and identity in a post-internet context. Drawing on cyberfeminist, glitch-feminist and transhumanist approaches, they investigate avatars, prototypes, ‘false’-selfhoods and the fallacy of the ‘IRL’. With over seven years industry experience, their role as makeup artist is fundamental to their multidimensional practice. Panel connected with MV Brown through a commission by Fraser Taylor for Instant Whip: The Textiles and Papers of Fraser Taylor in 2024.

The only role that established notions of beauty play in my work is as something to undermine. Performance has been my main medium for some time now, though it has shifted form over the years, more recently to using technology as an extension or replica of my body. I also work as a makeup artist, which tends to bleed into my art practice and vice versa; I have made work exploring the transformative powers of makeup, as well as the ritual of applying cosmetics and performance of self. I am interested in the cultural significance of cosmetics and strive to subvert traditional gendered perceptions of this. It is through my work as a makeup artist that I first started working digitally, approached by Fashion Interrupted – a collective specialising in digital fashion (of which I am now a member of, alongside Ciorstaidh Monk, Gillian Martin, and Emma Clifton) – to create a series of Instagram filters and corresponding makeup for avatars for a digital Fashion Show which took place at V&A Dundee in 2021. Last year I collaborated with artists Hanna Tulukki and Saturn Akin to create a series of AR filters designed by Hanna for her project ‘Avi-Alarm’ the aim of which was to raise the alarm for critically endangered birds via social media. I also recently reworked previous video work ‘Living Lipstick’ (2018) to make club visuals for Ponyboy. In both the original and new version I can be seen caressing a human sized lipstick with my own face cast into the bullet, though this latest version utilises AI to further blur the boundaries between the human and non-human.

A rediscovery of one’s own image… a second mirror stage? I think we’re all experiencing this to some degree through the evolution of social media and becoming hyper aware of ourselves in the way we present online. Prior to this, I, like many, definitely made versions of myself on The Sims or Second Life, though nothing really prepared me for how it would feel having a digital twin created through scanning myself and cloning my voice. Through digitising my ‘self’, I have been able to push the limits of body beyond what is physically possible ‘IRL’. Whilst I’d like to work more with bodies that aren’t my own, there’s a strong desire in me that wants to 'me-ify' multiple avatars. The ‘Selfie’ has become part of our everyday culture, and I guess I am taking this to the extreme. However, there is a fine line between commenting on the narcissism of our culture and being just another example of it. I also feel more comfortable with self-representation ethically, rather than using bodies which are not my own and will have a different set of cultural codes to mine. I can relate to some of the ethical discussion around the use of AI currently, particularly around stealing peoples’ likenesses.

My current research is exploring transhuman existence, intersubjectivity and embodied simulation. I’m interested in how queer traditions such as drag might disrupt what Legacy Russel in Glitch Feminism describes as 'capital’s regime of mining and profiting from data' – and particularly biometric data handed over in participation online. These present biopolitical possibilities for undermining the architecture of gender in the digital sphere. Throughout these areas of research runs a thread of humour and the absurd. I take a tongue-in-cheek approach to both my digital entities and my physical performance, interested in how humour itself can be used as a tool for subversion. This approach is informed by the aesthetics of camp, and I draw from many literary and visual references. Films like Showgirls (1995), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), and the works of Ulrike Ottinger revel in a queer camp aesthetic that both challenges and delights, providing a visual language for my own explorations. Recent novels I have loved include Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl and Susan Finlay's The Jacques Lacan Foundation. Finlay kindly wrote the catalogue text to accompany my work in Jerwood Survey. Books that have more direct links to my practice include Mindy Seu's Cyberfeminist Index and the Xenofeminist Manifesto by Laboria Cuboniks. I also draw from everyday performativity and identity construction within popular culture, such as karaoke and the TV show Stars in Their Eyes.

Something I relate to mainly; I am drawn to pop music for its universality. Themes such as loneliness and heartache, something we all can identify with, though it doesn’t make it any less profound to the individual experiencing it. I like lyrics a lot – verses more than choruses – I also enjoy making up my own lyrics to Instrumental songs. Most recently I have been looking at tracks which are popular choices at Karaoke. I love hearing someone sing and perform another’s song as if it’s their own – there’s something quite powerful there – we can for a brief moment become our idols. It also doesn’t matter if you can’t sing (I can’t) and for me it’s much more about the performed embodiment of another person.

Though they are in seemingly different worlds (art and fashion) I feel the two for me are very much intertwined. I feel lucky I have been able to find two things I love and can just about make a living from. When I started doing makeup a lot of people in the art world scoffed at the idea and asked me whether I’d given up on my art practice. Makeup to me is art and moreover it is performance, so the link made sense. More often than not I am working with other artists to help them build characters for their performance work, which is great to be privy to another’s process as well as being a small part of it. Working to someone else’s brief allows me to be creative without as much pressure, it has also taught me a lot about collaboration and how rewarding it is working for and with other creatives. Social media has really brought out the art in makeup artistry, and I love how accessible it is to view someone (usually) at home in their bedroom, simply painting their face for the enjoyment of the viewer. Filters are really just digital makeup, which can often unfortunately reinforce societal beauty standards, however there’s also so much room here to push the boundaries of what’s possible in reality, so that’s really exciting to see things move in this direction.

As a performer I have somehow always felt very much like a fly on the wall and equally identify with the observed and the observer. Whilst the audience may not be directly performing themselves, the performance needs them as witnesses, thus they become an integral part of the work. Much of my performance is concerned with this tension between embodied subjectivity and the body as spectacle, and earlier works involved me performing as an ‘object’, or quite literally part of the furniture as I blended in with the wallpaper for a performance at Celine Gallery, Glasgow in 2019; or performing as a cyborg in a bathroom at Fatima Maleki’s house the previous year. I enjoy works which are site-specific, and the audience as well as the building is something I think about a lot in relation to my performances or installations. I’d like my performances to be viewed like you would a sculpture or painting in that you can come and go as you please and to that effect it’s important for me that the audience keep their own autonomy. If someone doesn’t like it or has had enough, they can (and do) leave.

‘System of Touch’ (2024) was developed from a previous piece ‘All Saints’ (2022) commissioned by Cabbage Arts and shown at French Street in Glasgow, which featured a CGI animated performance-to-camera by four versions of myself in different guises performing a karaoke of ‘Never Ever’ by All Saints. My avatars were built using a game design software, Unreal Engine, from a 3D scan of my head to create my likeness, which I also included prints of in the show. For Jerwood I worked with similar processes but pushed this further to incorporate a full body CGI performance, working with motion capture to translate my movements to choreographed code.

By using the framework of a karaoke performance, the work employs tactics of universality that speak to a human search for connection and the ways in which we project ourselves onto one another, whilst simultaneously showing the (im)possibility of intracorporeal intersubjectivity with a digital avatar. In karaoke we are engaged as performer, articulating and expressing our own identity through another’s song: but what are we mirroring, what is at play, when authorship and representation are disrupted or rendered through computer generation?

I incorporated moments of glitch and slip in the soundtrack and animation, to reveal the mechanics at work in the piece. To add to the uncanniness, I can be seen wearing an identical costume to my avatar at each opening, designed by Morag Seaton and digitised by Fashion Interrupted. The track was built using AI to clone my singing voice, working closely with Craig Mulholland to build the track in Ableton. Saturn Akin was by my side for much of the animation process, and 3D printed my head before I adorned it with mirrored tiles à la disco ball. MM Whawell also provided early production support and was an invaluable sounding board for my ideas. I learn so much through working with people who have different skill sets to my own. It has also been exciting to situate the work amongst the other artists involved in Jerwood Survey III, and to watch the group show evolve over the exhibition tour.

Jerwood Survey III opened at Southwark Park Galleries, London 6th April – 23rd June and is currently on show at g39 in Cardiff until 7^th September, then Site Gallery, Sheffield 27^th September – 26^th January, before finishing at Collective, Edinburgh 28^th February – 4^th May 2025.

MV Brown

Born 1990, Edinburgh, Scotland

Based in Glasgow, Scotland

Brown has an MA in Film & Television Studies and English Literature from the University of Glasgow, and an MLitt in Fine Art Practice from The Glasgow School of Art.

Previous exhibitions and performances include French Street Gallery, Glasgow; Glasgow International; Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; Celine Gallery, Glasgow; Maleki House, London; Grace Exhibition Space, NYC; and Venice International Performance Art Week. Residencies include Studio Somewhere, Tramway, Glasgow; Cove Park, Argyle & Bute; and Art/Life Institute, New York.

Interview by Laura Richmond