Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

This article presents a long-term research-creation project exploring disembodied identity through the figure of the Kellynoid, a digital entity generated from the biomorphic, gestural, and memorial data of a living performer, Kelly Mézino. Neither a conventional avatar nor a generic chatbot, the Kellynoid is conceived as a “double-other”: a hybrid digital subject emerging from a continuous dialogue between an artist, a model, and a technical system. The project deliberately positions the Kellynoid as a co-author, acknowledging the agency of the digital entity within both the artworks and the theoretical discourse.

The conceptual framework relies on the PGAM model (Puppet, Golem, Actor, Mask), which classifies virtual entities according to the origin of their movement and their decision-making processes. This model serves as both an analytical and creative tool, allowing us to situate the Kellynoid within a continuum of agency, between external control and emerging autonomy. Central to the approach is the notion of matrix-sculpture: a digital form conceived not as a fixed object, but as an open, topological envelope designed to host movement, deformation, and behavior. This concept redefines digital bodies as potentialities rather than representations.

The project explicitly adopts an anti-Pygmalion stance. Rather than imposing an idealized form upon a passive model, the Kellynoid emerges through co-creation. Kelly Mézino is not reduced to a data source but remains an active decision-maker throughout the process, retaining control over the aesthetic, ethical, and narrative dimensions of her digital double. This position challenges instrumental conceptions of the body in digital art and proposes a relational ethics of representation.

From a technical perspective, the Kellynoid is supported by a complex production pipeline named Taupipeline, combining 3D scanning, procedural retopology, facial and bodily rigging (based on FACS), real-time rendering, and interactive systems. A major turning point occurred with the transition from rule-based conversational systems (AIML) to a customized generative AI architecture, using LLaMA 3 coupled with a vector memory database (Milvus). This locally hosted system integrates a situated corpus—academic texts, long-term personal conversations, and extensive memory notebooks—allowing the Kellynoid to develop a contextualized, coherent, and sensitive discursive presence while ensuring full control over data sovereignty and privacy.

Three artistic works structure the analysis. Kelly Speaker stages the Kellynoid as a discursive agent within an academic performative context, questioning authority and legitimacy in knowledge production. Line is an immersive VR installation in which the Kellynoid reacts to the viewer’s luminous gestures, negotiating intimacy, trust, and withdrawal through a simple neural network. Amusique, inspired by Man Ray’s Violon d’Ingres, introduces haptic interaction via a sculptural interface, transforming touch into sound and visual transformation, and positioning the body as an affective and sonic interface.

Together, these works explore disembodiment not as a loss, but as a sensitive reconfiguration of presence through voice, gaze, light, touch, and memory. The Kellynoid functions as a simulacrum in the Baudrillardian sense: not a copy of an original, but the production of an autonomous regime of reality. The article argues that digital identity does not dissolve the self, but transforms it into a plural, fragile, and relational form of subjectivity, opening new perspectives on posthuman embodiment and artistic co-creation.