The Virtual Reality experience Dead Star presents questions of light and dark, something or nothing, and the very scientific notion of a Dead Star.
A dead amalgamation of a human celestially lit suspended on the background of an ever expanding dark virtual space, obviously confronts the observer with the question of existence.
The pose from an autopsy table presented as a figure looking peacefully into the heavens seduces the viewer into an initial acceptance. Moving in closer, the very recognizable characteristics of the famous surface and now focus the viewer uncomfortably close to the very public personas that were never allowed to be private.
The still nakedness of the body exposes the entitled viewer to ghoulishly inspect and invade the privacy of ‘their’ entertainer. Thus, to objectify, scrutinize and judge further of what truth is or is not. Moving in closer, the acute viewer may recognize various tattoos of the ’27 Club’ and other transcendentalist thinkers and artists who fell victim to the romanticizing and false fantasy of alcohol and drug addiction masked in freedom, originality, fame and the arts.
The glamorization and societal brainwashing that lead to real life and death consequences are not myth in the making of these people and art, it simply is tragedy. The hope in this art is that we all have the ability to help and love another that may be in need of that help or love, no matter who that person is or is not.
Source: Prince Gallery