Molly Soda has been a “girl on the internet,” as she puts it, since the early 2000s, when as a mid-teen she started blogging with accounts on Xanga and LiveJournal. Over time she became more and more fascinated with how people construct and perform their identities in online spaces, according to the evolving codes and trends of the specific communities they inhabit. In her artworks—including video performances uploaded to YouTube, Instagram posts, and gallery installations—Soda finds ways to document and explore this process. 

In this virtual studio visit, Soda joins Outland from the living room of her home in Brooklyn—a backdrop that will be familiar to anyone who has watched her livestreamed or recorded videos. She explains that her work is rooted in an impulse not just to perform but also to archive the constantly changing ways we represent ourselves on the internet. (When she was a child, she says, she wanted to be an archeologist.) To illustrate this, she talks through several key pieces from across her career, including the widely exhibited Me Singing Stay by Rihanna (2018): a video collage of 42 young women performing covers of the titular song, with Soda at the center. She also discusses upcoming projects, including a multi-media play which is just about to enter rehearsals.