X=Kiss O=Hug: The Alter Ego Plays Matchmaker BY ALLY MESSER
Walking into the gallery, we are greeted with a screen displaying 3 swipeable dating profiles: Bby, Smoked Whitefish, and Memories of Masculinity. Scrolling left and right, I am reminded of the intimate nature of screens. The tablet clicks open and we suddenly exist in duality; in both the digital world and in our private spaces at once. Our fingers pluck endlessly through the lives of friends and strangers–doomscrolling as a way of life, parasocial morning routine, or sadistic bedtime ritual.
In recreating ourselves online we follow the prompts to design a version of ourselves at our perceived best; curating a slideshow of images at our most consumable. Moving beyond who we are and who we are perceived to be, the dating profile gives us an agency to exaggerate specific aspects of ourselves; giving shape to a new, third self-not-self. Alter egos like icons on a PC: click the floppy disk to save, drag to the trash can to delete. Online profiles become like and unlike ourselves. Hyper-detailed, layered beings stand beside malleable, digital shadows.
[ a flattening, a silhouette, an impression ]
With an anonymous audience, we shape our profiles from the point of view of the unknowable stranger. Instead of an audience surrogate, the hypothetical match is an invention built from people you know and the person you are (and have been). You, the dater, the eligible bachelor must invent your new self as both delicious bait and pursuant fish.
In Blind Date the dating pool is known so, when profile questions are answered, the artists’ avatars are designed to appeal to the specific desires of each/every suitor. The works of Boi Boy, Leslie Friedman, and Markus Denil respond to one another, each identity affecting the other. Instead of there being plenty of fish, there are only 3 possible matches. As profiles are edited/retraced, conflicting personality traits are dethroned in favor of compatibility. Glass vessels open in eagerness to hold. As the central, multi-color light refracts, the artworks’ silhouettes morph into a mirage–any defining rigidity begins to slip.
Denil’s Soft Power sits squat and stubborn in the corner of the gallery. Appearing solid from a distance, Soft Power sits across from you at the restaurant while its fan blows and the rose on the table between you quivers. When transferred to physical reality, the online avatar can no longer hold; the facade glitches. The avatar is animated, unflattened–like a codex unfolding, a barrage of pop-up windows each overlapping the other. Your date wobbles gently, revealing vulnerability in its piercable skin and soft, airy center.
Hanging flirtatious in the center of the gallery is Boi Boy’s plenty of cockrings in the sea: let’s start a polycule. Instead of typing “perfect match” into the search bar and following in the digital trenches of e-lovers past, this work appears to seek out multiple perfect matches instead. Illuminated in multi-color, the work is spotlighted; dancing alone on a crowded dancefloor. An eye-catching lure hoping to catch any and all suitors in its hot pink, glittering net, this work asks a question shared with a genre of pop-fic romance: Why choose?
From the back of the room, vibrant purple and blue paper scales shimmer and seduce. Friedman’s Party in the Dark Times flutters, transforming into what could be a single eligible fish or multiple within a mingling school. Octopus-like chromatophores, these scales hint at shared interest between artworks. The transformed, compatible avatar stands at the sidelines, scoping out its potential matches with longing for a fun time, a distraction from the dark times, maybe a long time, probably a short time, but definitely, definitely a good time.
In tense anticipation of the desire of the other, each artwork hybridizes. Some inflating their egos, dawning a new skin and scales, while others cast a wide net–
striving,
yearning
to compliment another.
WRITER BIO:
Ally Messer is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Philadelphia. In 2017, Messer co-founded Laika Press, a cooperative, community-based print shop in her hometown of Reno, Nevada. She holds a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Nevada, Reno and an MFA in Fibers and Material Studies from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Messer is a recipient of the 2025 Illuminate the Arts Grant and current Fob Holder at Second State Press in Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.
