A SPEECH GIVEN AT AN "INTIMACY" EXHIBIT PANEL DISCUSSION
The Princess Series lives at PrettySite.com, where the viewer is presented with a choice of numbered thumbnails and descriptions. If the viewer clicks on one of these thumbnails a pop-up window appears a flash movie plays.
Each movie is a narrative about a modern-day princess who finds herself without a fortune, and trapped in a soul-sucking corporate tower where she is forced to create coupons for cigarettes and junk mail.
It is a thinly disguised story of my own life.
Each story has a theme, usually an internal struggle of some sort.
For example:
In Story #2, she works to balance her duties in the tower with her
creative work.
In #5 she confronts her social anxiety.
And
In #11 she struggles with being represented in an unjust war.
As the princess confronts these issues, she faces the dilemmas, contradictions, and paradoxes of modern life. She questions her emotions, ideals, psychology, gender, and identity. She then (because ultimate freedom from the soul-sucking corporate tower depends on financial independence) attempts to resolve her problems through various financial schemes. She offers products, services or all out begs for money, all in the hopes of a fairytale happy ending.
A lot of people are disturbed by the princess’ financial desperation and find it distasteful or vulgar. What I intend to bring out by these pleas, is the fact that our lives are filled with monetary concerns, both in general and as artists.
The art world likes to pretend that the value of art is independent of monetary concerns — but we all know it is highly market driven. Artists are in large part successful due to their marketability and the taste of collectors. I feel that begging for money has more integrity than being dependent on the whim and tastes of the affluent class.
I would like to talk a little about why I chose to use the persona of a princess. What it comes down to is — I have it better than most people in this world. Globally speaking, I was born into a position of extreme privilege. I do not come from money, I live in a tiny apartment, but in general I have it good. That does not mean that I don’t get upset about my tiny apartment, having to go to work, or not being as successful or fabulous as I would like to be. I have the time and luxury — like most Americans — for naval gazing and brooding. While a princess symbolizes power and affluence, this princess realizes she is privileged — but is somewhat pathetic. I try to reflect this existential reality with a sense of humor.
In relationship to the theme of intimacy – the princess continuously exposes her intimate inner workings and describes her deep-seated weaknesses to the viewer. She is riddled with social anxiety, jealous, self-absorbed, vain, and plagued by out- of-control hormones.
To provide context for her inner-life, the princess looks to the world and culture around her.
For example, in story 18, she confronts her chronic jealousy:
She observes the fact that she suffers from jealousy, reads Andy
Warhol on jealousy, investigates how her jealousy manifests towards
others, studies her predisposition to jealousy based on her
astrological chart and then comes up with the idea to manufacture
chill pills – (which are clinically proven to reduce the
signs of jealousy). After all, our culture deals with emotional and
behavioral problems through medication.
Additionally, to provide herself a greater understanding of the world, the princess looks to her inner-life.
For example, in story 20, she wonders what drives one to violence.
The narration goes:
The princess is horrified by bombings in the international news,
she observes her distress and tries to put herself in the bombers
shoes. She confesses that she can understand the impulse to be
violent because of her own explosive temper, she thinks about why
she is led to violence and considers alternatives, she considers
how religious convictions are often at the root of violence and
opens a multi-denominational religious society — dedicated to
working towards non-violence, and inner-peace.
When an artist expresses intimate issues, you might see the work as merely therapeutic for the artist. I see it as an artistic expression of an emotional experience, which others can relate to through shared human experience.
In Anna Karenina, the Levin character stands in for Tolstoy — and enables him to express his own views, desires, emotions, cultural criticisms and spiritual troubles. The reader relates to Levin through shared human experience.
I was reading this book when I began work on the Princess Series, and was deeply moved.
I hope that by expressing my own views, desires, emotions, cultural criticisms and spiritual troubles — through the princess, who is MY stand in, the viewer will be able to relate through shared human experience — and also through humor.