Born in 1989, Amalia Soto, working under the pseudonym Molly Soda, has developed an extensive body of online art analysing digital cultures, specifically the mechanisms of self-exposure on the internet. Whether through self-filmed videos, GIF files or interventions on social networks, Molly Soda explores the relationship between private and public life that structures the digital image of young contemporary women. In a work that subverts these platforms, she hijacks or amplifies the particularly gendered codes of amateur online productions, adapting historical feminist artistic strategies to the contemporary media landscape.

Me Singing Stay by Rihanna, created in 2018, exemplifies her exploration of the bedroom culture, and of the articulation between public and private life that marks the generation of digital natives. The work deals with amateur practice of making covers of popular songs, both contemporary and older, online, face-to-face, predominantly by solo women. Molly Soda synchronised dozens of performances of Rihanna's Stay to reflect on the emotional power of music and the standardisation of intimacy. In a mosaic of melancholy portraits, she shifts from the solitary individual to the community, from self-portraits to the chorus, and from amateurism to the music industry.

Philippe Bettinelli, 2024