“That’s So Cowgirl”: A Nine-Minute Cig With Artist Emma Stern

On Wednesday, near Tompkins Square Park, we lit one up with artist Emma Stern, whose solo show The Rabbit Hole opened to a raucous crowd at Half Gallery. Her work is an extended performance, a marriage of her formal background in figuration and her own inquiries into 3D software used by video game developers and porn creators that uses the vocabulary of fetish and fandom communities to reimagine female tropes as sexy avatars. Stern’s newest body of work is based on an aging magician, her assistant, and their sidekick Bonnie the Bunny, who she describes as “mischief-makers” in residence at a fictional Las Vegas resort and casino. “This is my magician drag,” she quipped. The sunset glowing, Stern indeed looked as though she’d just stepped out of the fantastical universe hanging on the gallery’s white walls, dressed head-to-toe in fuchsia with a purple lighter to match. As old neighbors, emerging artists, and denizens of East Village pulled the star magician aside to gush over her show, we talked muses, furries, and the connection between gods, magic, and AI.

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LILY KWAK: I don’t know if you smoke?

EMMA STERN: I literally just had one. Fuck it, I’m going to have another.

KWAK: Fuck it! 

STERN: I bought a pack of cigarettes just for this. We might as well.

KWAK: What do you smoke?

STERN: These are Marlboro Lights. Someone told me these are like the Diet Coke of cigarettes, which made me like them more, not less, because I like Diet Coke. 

KWAK: I’m a Marlboro Red person.

STERN: Oh, that’s so cowgirl. What is Marlboro Red then? I guess it’s not Mountain Dew.

ATTENDEE: I’m sorry to interrupt.

STERN: Hi. Oh, you’re my old neighbor.

ATTENDEE: The show was really, really good.

STERN: Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it.

ATTENDEE: What sent you down the rabbit hole?

STERN: What sends me down the rabbit hole?

ATTENDEE: Isn’t it the rabbit hole?

STERN: It is. I was thinking a lot about magic, I think, because of AI. In my mind, it’s like this Arthur C. Clarke quote. I hope I’m not misquoting, but he’s like, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So I was like, I want to do a magic show. And then I was like, Vegas, obviously. 

KWAK: I’m going to smoke one with you. I have a rogue cigarette my friend brought from Beijing today.

STERN: That one’s sexy. I really like Chinese cigarettes. I was in Shanghai.

KWAK: Do you mind if I borrow your lighter?

STERN: Absolutely. It matches my shoes. I don’t even do that on purpose.

KWAK: How are you feeling about your show?

STERN: I feel really good about it. This was a weird one. I’ve done enough of these at this point that there’s this arc where I feel pretty good about it, and then I hate it hate it hate it. And then it gets installed and I’m like, “All right, this is not the worst thing I’ve ever done.” But for this one, I felt really good about it the whole time. 

KWAK: It’s the sexiest show on the block and everyone’s raving about you. 

STERN: Thank you.

KWAK: Can you describe it in a sentence?

STERN: It’s based on a fictional Las Vegas resort and casino called “The Rabbit Hole.” And it’s a magician named Pandora, her assistant Viola, and their sidekick, Bonnie, the Bunny, and they’ve been the mischief-makers in residence at this casino for as long as anyone can remember.

KWAK: What’s Pandora’s lore?

STERN: I always write little stories in my head for every show that serve as a jumping off point, because a lot of it really is about storytelling. It’s not so much that the paintings illustrate a story, but it’s definitely a dual process. One hand washes the other, and the story helps me generate imagery in a way. And so in my mind, Pandora is an aging magician who used to be hot shit, but now the magic has started to fade.

KWAK: Are these figures avatars or self-portraits in a sense?

STERN: I’ve been referring to the work that I make as an extended self-portraiture project for a long time. And it’s because I use a character design software that’s used by a lot of video game developers. It’s also used by a lot of people who make 3D porn. And I think that avatars are always self-portraits by definition, but they’re iterated. These are sort of proxies for my virtual self. I’ve started to think of the virtual self as almost like a costume or an outfit. There’s a lot of ties to cosplay, a lot of ties to drag. And when I say drag, I’m not even talking about anything gendered specifically, although of course that’s a part of it. But it’s more like, this is my magician drag. My last show in London was all about a fictional rock band, so that was my rockstar drag.

KWAK: They’re like alter egos.

STERN: They are. And a lot of them are recurrent characters. I can return to them, the way you kind of return to an outfit in a closet. 

KWAK: What avatar do you see yourself in today? 

STERN: I feel like a magician today. I’ve been thinking a lot about magic as I’ve been making the show. AI was the kernel that got me thinking about magic, but I also think artists are magicians. You think of something and then it exists. And that kind of makes me feel like a god. I was listening to something the other day, and someone referred to Jesus as a magician. I think that’s a direct biblical translation from ancient scrolls. And now we’re creating new life forms with artificial intelligence. So god, godliness, goddessness? I’m thinking a lot about that.

KWAK: How do you feel about furries and fandom and the slurry of internet subcultures being displayed and recontextualized in gallery space?

STERN: I mean, I borrow a lot of visual vocabulary from that underbelly. My hair is getting stuck to the double stick tape that’s holding my thing up. Okay. Yeah, I feel very inspired. Furries were kind of early to the party as far as having these alt selves. I love that this is a community and I don’t have a lot to do with this community. I’m not a furry, although I’m interested. Maybe one day if I have some time on my hands. But I think it’s kind of incredible the way that they go to these conventions and they wear the same suit every time so they recognize each other, and probably wouldn’t even recognize each other outside of these costumes. I think a lot of people are now interested in realizing that they spend more time as their virtual self than their actual self in many cases.

KWAK: It’s fascinating. I heard you used to nude model at Cooper Union, and you were really interested in the dynamic between artists and muses. Are there any particular artist and muse dynamics you were obsessed with?

STERN: Well, when I was in art school, I was really thinking a lot about surrealists. I was thinking about Gala, Salvador Dalí’s muse. She’s got to be one of my top five favorite muses. And then, I know this one’s problematic, but Balthus had Thérèse. The tie-in here would be that I am making my own muses and the muses are self-portraits in a way. 

KWAK: Okay. I don’t want to steal you from your own show, so I just have a couple more quick questions.

STERN: I’m having fun.

KWAK: I love your Twitter. I came across it last night.

STERN: Are you one of my eight Twitter followers?

KWAK: [Laughs] No, I followed you immediately because you’re hilarious. But I’m wondering if you can share something in your Twitter drafts. 

STERN: Oh, I don’t draft. I just post and delete. There’s nothing in the drafts. Maybe there should be, but…

KWAK:  Okay, last question. Would you ever make an interactive game with the universe you’ve built?

STERN: That’s the plan.

KWAK: Oh my God, I’m so excited.

STERN: That’s the plan. If someone wants to give me, I don’t know, five mil, I could probably do it. If anyone out there is interested in letting me make a game, I’m down.