10.6092/issn.2038-3460/16780
application/pdf
2038-3460
16780
2
en
Daniela Kostova
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
I Am Whatever You Want Me To Be (Cover’s Comment)
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
2
Editorial
2011-12-29
2023-04-18
2011-12-29
2023-07-06
TS
Daniela Kostova
2011/12/29
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/16780
2038-3460
2
en
I Am Whatever You Want Me To Be (Cover’s Comment)
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/16780/15809
2
                                              cover
I Am Whatever You Want Me To Be, by Daniela Kostova, a work commissioned by the show
Moleculart, curated by Boris Kostadinov, Rajko Alexiev Gallery, Sofia (2008) and later exhibited in
New Delhi and New York.

I Am Whatever You Want Me To Be is an opulent photographic self-portrait that
shows four archetypical characters referring to artist's previous work. It
combines Bulgarian tradition (the pagan figure of the kukeri dancer, wearing a
beast like costume) and Bulgaria's struggle with the idea of tradition (the chalga
singer, embodying the folk music tradition and a new social identity arouse in
Bulgaria in the nineties) with quotes from American pop-culture (boom box, fast
food, television), in a familiar, yet unusual setting. The image is a freeze-frame of
an implosion of space and time. As in general relativity time and space are part of
the same continuum and gravitation is only a curvature of space, the free market
theory reduces culture to the supply/demand continuum, art is only a curvature
of consumerism. The four characters, as moments in time, coexist impossibly in
the space of digital photography. It is the Big Bang in reverse: instead of nothing
exploding into everything, this is everything imploding into nothing (as in the
case of art imploding into advertising). The photo is a freeze frame of such a
universe.
In order to communicate her idea, Daniela performed each character for the shot
by posing in the four different costumes herself. Later she digitally stitched the
shots in a large format composite printed on canvas.




Daniela Kostova (Sofia, 1974) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, performance,
photography and installation. Her work addresses issues of geography and cultural representation, the
production and crossing of socio-cultural borders, and the uneasy process of translation and
communication. In 2003 she was granted a Graduate Fellowship from the RPI, Rensselaer, NY where
she later taught Intermediate Digital Imaging. In addition, Daniela curated the BioArt Initiative — an
art and science project of the Arts Department and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary
Studies at RPI. Since the beginning of 2011 she has been Creative Director of Bulgarian Artists in
America, an organization based in NYC.
