It’s been a while that I covered the art of Milena Carbone (mylena1992). When I got the invitation to visit “Resilience 2049”, her newest exhibtion, I decided to visit it for two reasons – firstly her exhibtion is at Michiel Bechir Gallery, a gallery that I cover comparably regularly, and secondly I read her notecard that came with the invitation and I became curious.
Milena Carbone’s notecard explains the background of the exhibition, the main story, that connects all presented pictures (portraits), she explains the word “Résilience”, she explains the technique how the portraits were taken – and finally she outlines her own thoughts.
The “Resilience 2049” exhibition grew out of the “Resilience” dance show presented at Noir Wen in April 2023. Behind the dancers, the background featured a series of portraits of “resilient” people, most of them children. The show gave little explanation for the staging, which everyone interpreted in their own way.
(Get more information about the ballet “Résilience” here)
I got a lot of feedback on these portraits, and decided to make them a permanent exhibition in my studio, the Carbone Studio. The exhibition in the Michiel Bechir Gallery is a first sketch of that exhibition.
Resilience is the ability of an individual, a group or a community to adapt and recover from crisis, trauma, loss or major change in their lives. This is what my generation and generations to come are going to have to face, forced and coerced by previous generations who were unable to mobilize to spare us from the suffering of an increasingly violent world and a planet going haywire.
Impressions of “Resilience 2049” by Milena Carbone @ Michiel Bechir Gallery (1)
And why 2049?
Blade Runner 2049 and, three years apart, Wong Kar-wai’s 2046. Both films deal with the end of a world
2049 marks the centenary of the Chinese revolution, and the Chinese government’s project to become the world’s dominant power.
2049, or 2050, is a key date in the IPCC reports, which see it as the climate tipping point.
Resilience 2049 is a portrait gallery of witnesses from the year 2049 to the dangerous, violent and inhospitable world we’ve handed down to them.
In the center of the exhibition runs a video. In this video the characters shown as portraits on the walls of the exhibition come alive. They talk and change their facial expression. The video can also be seen on youtube here.
The video as well as the portraits were created using AI – the result is very impressive! And as Milena wrote, the portraits and the characters are still her art, her style.
The portraits were all created exclusively with Midjourney, applying my style parameters. The application is relatively unstable today, with almost weekly updates and improvements, making the stability of my style more fragile.
I used a face animation app for the first time. The characters in the video may seem caricatured in relation to the seriousness of the subject. I’m aware of that. But I had to try. Here too, the application is regularly updated. In a recent update, after the creation of this video, the emotional mimicry of the faces was improved.
Impressions of “Resilience 2049” by Milena Carbone @ Michiel Bechir Gallery (2)
Resilience 2049 is an impressive exhibition with a message, a clarion call to action. It touched me – as Milena intended it. The portraits are quite realistic, they express their feelings, their anger and their desperation. Resilience 2049 is not an exhibition “to enjoy”, more “to experience” – another piece of art fo Milena Carbone.
Milena Carbone (mylena1992) is a French artist and is in Second Life since mid 2019. She discovered its artistic potential and since then has devoted all her free time to creation, associating, as in real life, images and texts: “Milena Carbone is a fiction in which, as in any artistic work, biographical and imaginary elements are mixed.” Her creative process is iterative: some of her images inspire her stories and these stories modify the development of the image, which itself transforms the story.
Milena has an own gallery, the Carbone Studio and she has a bookstore @ Noir’Wen City.
Milena has an own website, you can also find her on flickr here and you can read her texts here.
The Michiel Bechir Gallery has a new main building. “Resilience 2049” by Milena Carbone is on 2d floor on the right. I haven’t (yet) visited the other current exhibitions. Thank you Michiel and the whole team Maggie Runo, Tresore Prada (tresore) and MsToya (Mstoya Bailey) for providing the space for the arts!
Landmark to Michiel Bechir Gallery and to Resilience 2049 by Milena Carbone
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Embrace/30/228/2503
Landmark to The Carbone Studio
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Woiler/179/188/3316
Landmark to The Carbone Bookstore @ Noir’Wen City
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Noir%20Wen/243/214/32
Milena’s website
https://sites.google.com/view/thecarbonegallery
About the ballet Résilience :
https://sites.google.com/view/thecarbonegallery/dance/ballets/resilience
Youtube video “Resilience 2049” :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXy9A_p1lTY
Milena Carbone’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/milenacarbone/
Milena Carbone’s writing
https://medium.com/@539568
Diomita Maurer’s Blog 