[Sound of typing the keyboard]
[Sound of the “enter” key]
[Silence]
>Hello, Cleopatra!
The avatar is here: clean and modern.
“That doesn’t look like that Egyptian Cleopatra at all,” the audience is disappointed. But more of them choose to shut their mouth and pretend that they know something about that avatar.
And I say this is the new world Cleopatra. THE Cleopatra.
I always have some kind of resonance with the name Cleopatra and where she stood in the world, probably because of my original name of “Cleo”. But as I was picking up more and more personalities, I realized I need something deeper to connect with that character so that she could be my Cleopatra, THE Cleopatra of the time.
That is the reason of me choosing this avatar. This is actually a picture of a cup noodle seal that I found myself being super attracted to in a Japanese museum. I’m in love with how modern time modifies people’s focus on individualism. And the idealistic face of a young girl in the late 80s crushes with the commercial label of, well, a legally produced cup noodle. The time of capitalized world belongs to her face.
And when I reflected this on the identity of Cleopatra with all her famine characteristics and her power of love and her empire, I found some kind of resonance: the connection between the time and individuals. And this photo became my Cleopatra of some kind. (Plus all of them are somehow famous with their black black hair;)
Creating this avatar was actually pretty straight forward. I applied filter to reinforce her black hair as well as the black text to create a sense of collision. Then I sealed her mouth with a slogan “TO BUY A ________CLEOPATRA” so the character can be fully immersed in the time that she owns.
There’s a saying in Chinese called: “时势造英雄 (The time is what makes a hero)”.
Well, the time is what makes a Cleopatra.
THE Cleopatra 