Blondes From Beyond 2008, 5-channel video installation (5 eMacs, pedestals, videos)
Exhibition at Whitebox Gallery- The Annex, NY, 2008
Blondes From Beyond, Individual Videos
Anna Nicole, (clip 1:30 min.)
Portrait of Anna Nicole Smith, color video with sound, 14 min.
Source: “The Art Showing”, The Anna Nicole Show, Season 2, 2003
Heather, (clip 30 sec.)
Heather O’Rourke, color video with sound, 40 sec.
Source: Poltergeist (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1982)
Britney, (clip 45 sec.)
Portrait of Britney Spears, color video with sound, 2:40 min.
Source: 2007 VMA Awards, MTV
Andy, (clip 45 sec.)
Portrait of Andy Warhol, color video with sound, 1:45 min.
Source: (dir. Andy Warhol, music video for Hello Again, The Cars 1984), Love Boat Theme Song, free MIDI file
Marilyn,(clip 1 min.)
Portrait of Marilyn Monroe, black and white video with sound, 3 min. Source: The Misfits (dir. John Huston, 1961)
Project Notes
In American culture, icons are often based on sexual appeal and deadness; the celebrity’s larger than life-ness permanently secured in death. Blondeness has multiple associations that connote whiteness, childhood innocence, stupidity, divinity, the sex symbol, glamour, promiscuity, and temptation. Aside from “blondeness” and “deadness”, “real-life” subjects and their media images relate to each other in categories of child star, addiction, motherhood, "American Dreamer", as well as artist/subject and as copy/original (to name a few).
The chosen footage often represents the uncanny break between fiction and reality, playing on the notion of perceived “real” moments, and accidental moments of fragility captured on film.
The monitor becomes a conduit, channeling the dead to keep identities and images immortal in media. Projecting an external persona is the self-preservation of celebrity.
Blondes From Beyond also refers to the larger sociological symptoms of the fame game and the timelessness of tragic female celebrities. It’s all so very All About Eve: same dance, different stilettos. Gendered celebrity is a cultural construct and a deep economic and sociological need that structures ideology and polices identity. Entertainment as value takes its root in the reinvention and redemption of stars.
The 1990s technology boom has only further fueled obsessions with celebrity culture. With It-girls as constant front-page news and a habitual flow of reality TV, specialized cable programming, and innumerable blogs, fan sites, and Youtube postings, celebrity culture has hit fever pitch. Britney Spears is the most over-produced, exploited, and mediatised celebrity in recent history, holding a permanent position at the top of yearly Google zeitgeist hit-lists. Each video is a portrait of a blonde in pop culture, all dead with the exception of Britney who represents the living dead and possible future ghost of Blondes from Beyond. Over the past few years of her tumultuous media life, many national papers admit having her obituary already prepared.
The spectacle of femininity persists to be tied to American culture’s blood lust for celebrity redemption and demise.
