Lady Gaga has stripped off for a ‘cyborg’ photoshoot for fashion magazine Paper – but haven’t we seen all this before?
The controversial singer took part in a multimedia shoot with Belgian artist Frederick Heyman, who wanted to scan every inch of her body to create a 3D ‘avatar’ – or perhaps ‘Gagatar’ – to promote new album Chromatica.
“I’ve been obsessed with the future for so long, going, ’What’s next?’: she said in the interview for Paper. “Then I turned back and looked at my life. I unpacked all the things I’ve learned that have helped me and that have hurt me, and that taught me infinitely more.”
Avatar
Using images from hundreds of cameras combined with computer generated imagery, Frederik Heyman created a cyborg Gaga avatar to place in various digitally constructed environments. The shoot is informed by Lady Gaga’s unique fashion sense – she rejects wearing head-to-toe designer clothing, instead opting for a fashion direction where “It doesn’t need to go together, it just needs to be upsetting.”
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But for anyone who remembers back as far as 1999, doesn’t this all look kind of familiar? That’s when Icelandic singer Björk released All Is Full of Love, accompanied by a computer generated video directed by Chris Cunningham. The video uses Björk’s original mix, and depicts Björk as a robot being assembled in a factory, who passionately kisses another robot. The video is often cited as one of the best of all time and a milestone in computer animation; it has been displayed in art exhibitions and was on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The single reached number 24 on the UK Singles Chart and became a dance hit in the United States.
So maybe Lady Gaga isn’t so much looking to the future, as looking back to the past.
