Televisions are hung on the wall on the top of the staircase for viewing. On each television, one celebrity is shown siting in silence. Some nervously tick, some practice their smiles, but most give a completely blank stare. In this PBS article about his exhibition, Shearer claims that he wants to leave his art up to be interpretated by the viewers. He says, "I'm trying to give people as little surrounding content as possible, as little interpretation as possible." He wants everybody to "make up their own story."
To me this exhibition shows that nothing that we see on TV is completely real. As much as we think we may know our favorite celebrity inside in out, in reality what we see is only what they choose to show us. They create their own carefully manufactured personality in order to achieve the goal they want to show. We're lead to believe that these people are the smiling faces we see on camera all the time, but most of the time they are no different than any of us.
As the artist leaves this exhibition up for interpretation, there are definitely many different ways to view this exhibition. How would you interpret this exhibition?
To me, the images show how the industry works. When they're on screen performing for their audience, these people put on their facades. But when they ave no one watching them, they are completely different. They simply sit there and wait for someone to watch. When an audience is watching, the actors can be anything. Take away that audience, and they are almost nothing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read the article you linked to, I scanned the comments at the bottom. There was one thing that I found interesting, the lack of music shows what life is really like for these celebrities. On many reality shows, music is played in the background, making the scene more emotional or exciting, and definitely less awkward. But thinks of shows without this music, and your result would be these videos; celebrities sitting awkwardly in silence, waiting for the moment to pass.
ReplyDeleteTo me these images are showing us that these celebrities that we idolize are humans too. We like to put famous people on a pedestal and separate them from ourselves but in reality we are all the same. The celebrities nervous actions and there preparation before they go on air, shows that they are only trying to please us as you said Rachel; "They create their own carefully manufactured personality in order to achieve the goal they want to show". Which means we are not seeing the real person, and instead just a fake representation of them. So, we are just idolizing a “fake” person, which does not make sense at all! I really like how the artist left his work up for interpretation because it lets you get more out of it if you think for your self.
ReplyDeleteI think that this exhibit is trying to display that the people in show business are simply "personalities." Before the action they are everyday people and I feel like when we are casually watching TV we sometimes forget that. Just as anyone else, they have moments of self-reflection. As for the silence in the exhibit, I think this is meant to further emphasize the ongoing spiel of sounds in broadcasting. The noise coming from the television is almost never silenced, which prohibits the viewer to think, or reflect. By simply viewing the television rather than hearing it, I think that we are more able to analyze what it is we are seeing.
ReplyDeleteNicely generative post, Rachel. What I would add to your interpretation is how this perhaps is uniquely American, and perhaps extend your thoughts as a reaction to the comments you received. What about the image of political candidates, too?
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