starshots:the

Star shots - Observation Texts

Date: 2007

See images of both series here:

http://fotokatie.com/doku.php?id=starshots:star_shots_2007

and here:

http://fotokatie.com/doku.php?id=starshots:star_shots_2000

Size: 125cm x 85cm, Lambda Print mounted on Forex, with UV Protection

Media: Analogue Photography and Digital Collage

(…) All the time they have nothing in their heads but portraying themselves, in the most distasteful manner, though they are quite oblivious of this. What they capture in their photos is a perversely distorted world that has nothing to do with the real world except this perverse distortion, for which they themselves are responsible. Photography is a vulgar addiction that is gradually taking hold of the whole of humanity, which is not only enamored of such distortion and perversion but completely sold on them, and will in due course, given the proliferation of photography, take the distorted and perverted world of the photograph to be the only real one. Practitioners of photography are guilty of one of the worst crimes it is possible to commit–of turning nature into a grotesque. The people in their photographs are nothing but pathetic dolls, disfigured beyond recognition, staring in alarm into the pitiless lens, brainless and repellent. Photography is a base passion that has taken hold of every continent and every section of the population, a sickness that afflicts the whole of humanity and is no longer curable. The inventor of the photographic art was the inventor of the most inhumane of all arts. To him we owe the ultimate distortion of nature and the human beings who form part of it, the reduction of human beings to perverse caricatures – his and theirs. I have yet to see a photograph that shows a normal person, a true and genuine person, just as I have yet to see one that gives a true and genuine representation of nature. Photography is the greatest disaster of the twentieth century…

Excerpt of an Interview with Thomas Bernhard about photography

The first series of star shots – The Phenomenon of Ex-changeability – emphasizes on and plays with those oh so informative and scandalous but rather stereotype situations in the world of celebrity gossip, categorized (by the artist) as at the beach, at a party, shopping, at the airport etc. Ever repeating scenarios, easy to identify as paparazzi imagery due to their blurriness and distance to the subject, resulting in a grainy pattern and not to forget the fine greenish blurry cloud in the foreground decorating most of the images, as a result of literally shooting their victim behind a camouflage of protective bushes. The ex-changeability of these images, which may only reveal the identity of their blurry protagonists throughout a well fitting or rather manipulative headline as well as the constant in-scening of both the observer and the observed is the main aspect in the first star shots series.

Star Shots A photographic series in three parts

The first part, Star shots I, plays with the scandalous and rather stereotype situations in the world of celebrity gossip. Categories such as “at the beach”, “at a party”, “shopping”, “jet set” are ever repeating scenarios, easy to identify as paparazzi imagery due to their blurriness and distance to the subject. The exchangeability of these images, which may only reveal the identity of their far away protagonists, throughout a well fitting and manipulative headline as, is the main aspect of the first part of the series. Leaving behind these easytoidentify aesthetics, the protagonists of the second part, Star shots II, both in front of and behind the camera, come out of their protective camouflage to carefully assist each other in finally choosing and publishing the most suitable moment.

Focusing on young female media stars, Star shots 2 reveals the pseudo scandal beneath the alleged perfect appearance of celebrities within paparazzi photography. Widely documented and broad casted disasters, such as Kate Moss' affection for cocaine or Britney Spears' inability to successfully park her car, are just a few examples to be reenacted by the artist herself in the photographic series.

Star shots 2 visualizes the crack in the mask, which, seductively glittering, slowly gives way under the pressure of constant observation and the inevitably destructive desire of self insceneing, to eventually break open, scattering the myriad alleged scandals and tragedies, which the hungry public eye is waiting for day after day: The blank bareness in all its eerie, dazzling splinters. This series emphasizes the absurdity on which the female star cult is based and on the damaging consequences that a daily insceneing can extend to.

Star shots III exposes yet another layer of the phenomenon of paparrazzi and celebrity photography: The Double. Following an intensive research and experimentation within the field of paparazzi photography on the one hand and psychic, and spirit photography on the other, Star Shots III reveals the subtle connection of the two phenomena.

The double as the aetheric counterpart of the physical body, takes the role of the very mask which in the scond part gives way under the constant pressure of observation and self staging. The mask or the double wanders about in the third series as a ghostly shell, as the discarnate double, detached and free from its original physical body. In her darkroom cabinet, the artist literally conjures the very double of certain living and especially mediumistic female celebrities. Successfully materialised she is ready to catch and expose it on photographic paper.

→ Interview 2007