Kamilia Kard: Kisses as Game Controllers and Digital Identity

Kamilia Kard, an Italian artist and PhD candidate in Digital Humanities at the University of Genoa, discusses her interactive filter 'Fall?in?g L?ve', a video game where players use kisses as controllers to catch hearts. The work critiques how intimate gestures are commodified for user profiling. Kard began using filters as a performer in 2013 on Snapchat and started creating her own in 2018. Her filters range from 'Compulsive Love' (glitter tears, no laughing) to 'Heart-Shape-Face' (head deformation). She notes generational differences: younger users embrace grotesque distortions, older ones prefer beautification. Her VR projects include 'Rainbowdream' (Fotomuseum Winterthur, 2017), 'Moonligh Thoughts' (Triennale Milano), and 'Bit Time Thing' (2019), an ASMR-inspired environment. Her latest installation at Careof, Milan, features a machinima 'Loading Instructions (mansplaining)' where a female warrior always loses to an unarmed man, critiquing mansplaining. She is developing 'Dance Dance Dance', a participatory performance on Roblox. Kard teaches Multimedia Communication at Brera Academy and 3D Digital Modeling at Carrara Academy. Her works have been shown at Victoria & Albert Museum, IMAL, and Museo del Novecento. She curated 'Alpha Plus. An Anthology of Digital Art' (2017) and was a Visiting Fellow at EnsadLab, Paris.