Ruby Gloom

Metronom: You participate in the project Digital Video Wall 2020 | Eden with the video work Metal Romance (2019). As a digital and 3D artist, what is your personal approach to technology and its obsolescence? How do you deal with video as a medium and with its supports?

Ruby Gloom: I use technology as a medium to express myself and my concepts. The very first attempt to show my work was through social media, through phone screens. For a few seconds, it was like to capture the audience’s eyes in a glance; sometimes a phone cannot condense emotions in one image. Metal Romance (2019) is my first art project and I believe that zooming that into a bigger medium and space the appearance of Ruby9100M would be more haunting.

M: Often online the idea and representation of the body can be idealized throughout a 3D, polished interface that can be the only visible detail of our personality. How do you think hyper-connectivity and social media impact on the relationship and feelings we have towards our own body? How does the internet increase the possibilities of self-expression and self-representation in your opinion?
RG: In the world of technology and social media, we compare ourselves physically a lot to what we see online. Even though almost everything we see URL is heavily polished or calculated with marketing strategies and techniques, we cannot help to feel like we are not good enough. We often connect with people online but ignore the importance of building a relationship with our own selves. Instead of trying to learn who we really are, how we see ourselves, we are almost led to portray our identity online as “perfect”. The way I created 9100M is to explore my own sexuality and possibilities. If, as human, I could break through all the physical restrictions and space, how could I live free?

M: You are also a creative designer, a fashion influencer and a 3D digital art director. Do these other activities inform your artistic practice in any way? 

RG: In my world, beauty “according to rules” does not make any sense. I am always a fashion lover and an anime enthusiast. Fashion has always been the way I present myself, I never aim to dress pretty, but expressing the culture and era that I am fond of.  With the practice of styling, art directing and design, I filter all the ideas and my taste into one single identity – RUBY 9100M.

M: All the protagonists of Metal Romance are proud, fierce, they have prosthesis, artificial limbs, robotic body parts, plastic inserts: they are cyborgs who also have an amplified erotic charge. Are you interested in setting a sort of new Cyber-feminist manifesto?

RG: Women are often sexualized by males in Sci-fi movies or computer games as they are made to attract male users. Of course, as a woman, I am sometimes strongly attracted to bold, erotic and sensational female characters because of the idea of unlimited imagination they could bear. However, I think that it is a very different approach when it comes to how women see themselves. It could be sexually attractive, but more emotional because we know how it feels when gazed. I see 9100M as a female cyborg detaching her identity from mine but at the same time a part of her lives inside of me, as her creator.

M: The avatars in your work explore their sexuality in front of the viewer. What’s in them that reflects your personality and what is their purpose or role in your practice and research on the net?

RG: I think women can easier accept varieties in terms of beauty, sexuality and genders maybe because we have higher tolerance in physical pain, as a consequence more compassion. The sexualization of my avatars is in the eyes of the beholder as I never thought of it in this way, I am only a woman looking at the beauty of other women. I went to a girls school from 6 to 17 years old. Although I prefer a male partner, women are always the human beings that I most appreciate physically and mentally. I hope that the exploration of female avatars I am carrying on influences people, especially women, not to try or want to be like someone else, and suggests a romantic beauty we can genuinely appreciate.

Ruby Gloom (Hong Kong, 1991) works with video and new media. Her practice reflects upon the relationship between biological nature and digital reality, on identity and technology. In 2020 she collaborated on Apple Hong Kong Today’s campaign by sharing the journey of 3D art with the theme “Create Your Second Life”. In 2019 she participated in the show #Photographer curated by Wing Shya (Parallel Space Gallery, Hong Kong).

©Ruby Gloom and METRONOM, 2020

4/12/2020