MY DEKSTOP DECOR * RELAXING* | MOLLY SODA

In My Desktop Decor * Relaxing * Molly Soda treats her desktop as one of the rooms in her house: while streaming from her actual webcam at home, she shares with the viewer all the steps of the renovation, that is approached as if it was a bedroom redecoration, with images of bedside succulents, a new funny wallpaper, some inspirational quotes hanging here and there, fairy lights and books.

Like anyone with a YouTube profile, Soda appropriates the DIY aesthetic while making it a distinctive sign of its own artistic personality. The artist also plays on the fact that at first glance Soda’s online activity does not differ from that of many YouTubers, and this is because it is typical of users to project their own mental categories on the net, whether they are right or wrong, as in every first encounter with something unknown.

Particularly interesting for the artist is the moment in which she is pointed out that there is nothing different between her and any other commercial profile: this expresses the public’s obsession with the concept of “authenticity”, a word now almost prerogative of the world of marketing, especially the digital one: being authentic is something that haunts us, but that we cannot clearly define. In particular, “authenticity” is a term that by definition seems to be invalid on the web, a place where it is taken for granted that “reality” does not exist just because at a superficial glance the five senses are not involved in the transmission of experience. For Soda, on the other hand, the web is a space of reality, experience, sharing and spontaneity, a necessary and essential condition to guarantee a free, wide and interesting space for creation.

Molly Soda,  My Desktop Decor * Relaxing *, 2019
©the artist
2/12/2020