Victoria Geoghegan – Installation
Dead celebrities live on through image and sound. Everything they once said seems to have a more influential meaning once they die. They become an instant legend. We feel like we knew them but we did not. We knew what they looked like and what they sounded like but we only ever saw snippets of their lives through newspapers or on the television. Iconic images that are constantly reproduced through the media are only a representation of a person yet we create assumptions about the person being pictured. We have emotions and feelings towards the story attached to the image.
I plan to explore how it is possible to feel a loss over a person that you never met, to explore why people mourn over a person who was not aware of their existence. All we ever know is pixels on a screen or print on paper, yet we start to form a character from all the information we are fed and we start to believe we know these people. We become attached to the pictures we see whether we admit it or not, we all recognise iconic images without even having to think twice about whom they are. It is hard not to pass judgement on their lives from the image and video which is fed to us through the media.
“On a very basic, biological basis, scientists say we humans are hardwired to be fascinated with celebrity, and that our brains receive pleasurable chemical stimuli when we see familiar faces.” (Altman, Celebrity culture, Are Americans Too Focused On Celebrities, 2005)
Is it the mass production of their images which causes us to become over sensitized to these people? As time passes we become less sensitized and become numb to them as a person. They simply exist in our minds as an iconic image.
“Houran recalls a teenage girl who began injuring herself after learning that punk singer Marilyn Manson, her favourite celebrity, was getting married. “She cut her arms, neck and legs. She was rushed to the hospital. She wanted to be the one to change him. When she was discharged, she realized what she did was extreme. But she still rationalized her obsession, saying, ‘I just want him to be happy. If he is happy, I am happy. He is the only person I connect with.’” (Altman, Celebrity culture, 2005)
It seems that because we view these people through a screen we seem so place them on a pedestal, they are legends and almost appear superhuman to us.
When somebody you care about dies you never truely get over it; there will always be pain within. Why is it that people can cry hysterically over the death of Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston, saying things such as ‘I cant believe they are gone’, then as time passes they no longer feel any emotion. They are just another dead legend that ‘died before their time’.
Are the emotions we feel towards these icons ever real?
Repetition causes things to become meaningless.
