MDVANII, A META FICTION

Mdvanii at the Maison d'Ailleurs is the concretisation of a new turn in the career of BillyBoy* and Lala. The exhibition Mdvanii, Memories from Earth emphasized the aesthetic message specific to the artist's universe, and projects Mdvanii and her peers far into the future. When exactly? The visitor is free to decide...

Above all, BillyBoy* and Lala say that they choose difference and individuality rather than standardisation and "global thinking", and express the fusion of the worlds - until now clearly different - of dolls, art, and science fiction. Surrealism, Futurism and science fiction always had a great impact on BillyBoy*'s career. For example, in the middle of the seventies, he invented Mister Modern, which appeared in numerous video-clips, in the underground press and during "happenings" with the support of Andy Warhol. Ironic, announcing great social changes for the future, Mr. Modern is the fantastical counterpart of his creator: he's surfing on trends to anticipate them, manipulating the media and laughing at the people trying to imitate him... Also, BillyBoy* was the first to conceive astronaut clothes for Barbie.

This exhibition actually expresses the will of the Maison d'Ailleurs to show that the horizon of science fiction is wider than the imagery which is often associated to it by the general public. Of course, numerous literary and cinema masterworks have been produced through that traditional form. But science fiction contains many forms of expression, and the Maison d'Ailleurs has the great pleasure to show here - once more - how varying and surprising that field can be...

Dolls - maybe strangely - aren't absent of science fiction, mainly as artificial counterfacts of the human being, like androids and clones. For instance, Olympia, described by E.T.A. Hoffmann in Der Sandmann at the beginning of the 19th-century, is nothing but a mechanical doll. But she matches the appearance of a real woman so perfectly that the main character falls in love with her. For Philip K. Dick, a doll represents even more than a false human being. Inspired by Barbie, the writer imagines (in The 3 stigmatas of Palmer Eldritch, 1965) that it is possible to project oneself in the miniature world of dolls with the help of drug use. Colonists, living a miserable life on Mars, can leave their morbid daily existence to rejoin Perky Pat, her sportscar, her Jacuzzi and her nice suburban house. The satire of the American way of life of the sixties isn't far... 

It's also a whole universe that BillyBoy* and Lala present at the Maison d'Ailleurs. The doll actually becomes a medium for fiction: Mdvanii gets a true psychological dimension. The artists give her the profile of an intellectual, independent and smart woman, with her own relatives (friends, family and lovers), her hobbies, her literary tastes. It's a real and complete world appearing in front of us, through several artistic mediums (photography, drawing and sculpture).

The woman has a place of primary importance in that society, and she doesn't content herself with being a stooge. We are very far from the classical image of woman in science fiction - which, like Ursula Le Guin wrote, "presented them as squeaking dolls subject to instant rape by monsters--or old maid scientists de-sexed by hypertrophy of the intellectual organs--or, at best, loyal little wives or mistresses of accomplished heroes." It's the contrary here: Mdvanii, mysterious and delicate, leads men where she wants. She dresses with organic clothes or cloud dresses, and never forgets to be sophisticated and glamorous, even in her daily life.

As BillyBoy* and Lala said, "if man walked on the moon, Mdvanii will surely walk there on high heels..."

Patrick G. Gyger

Curator of the Maison d'Ailleurs

August 2001.